You always hear about lowering the pH, acidifying the water, etc. However, I have the opposite problem where my mash pH is always low. I use the ColorpHast strips and I alway end up around 4.8 or so when I dough in, even when doing an all pilsner grist and adding a couple grams of chalk (which I have decided does almost nothing).
I usually end up adding 2-4g of baking soda to get the pH up to where it needs to be. The water I'm using is pretty soft (see below) so I would think that I would end up just about where I wanted if I used that and a pale grist. The readings blow are from 3 measurements of the city's water:
Ca : 5-6
Mg : 1
Na : 40-45
Cl : 40-50
SO4: 15 - 18
CaCO3: 30 - 38
pH: 6.75-7.7
Anyone have any better suggestions on how to raise the pH other than chalk and baking soda? I don't want to put all that sodium in, but the chalk doesn't seem to do anything (I added 5g and it didn't shift notably over 10 minutes).
Thanks