After calibrating your meter with the buffers, rinse the electrode(s) and glassware with distilled or deionized water. Carefully measure 100 ml of your sample and place in a 150 ml beaker for the pH and alkalinity part. Place the rinsed electrode in the test sample. We strongly encourage letting all samples come to room temperature in the tightly capped bottle before analyzing. If you are conducting other analyses with the sample water, keep in mind that pH should be analyzed within 5 minutes of uncapping the sample bottle. The sample should be stirred very gently, preferably with a magnetic stirrer. It may take up to 3 minutes for the reading to become stable. When stable, but not in excess of 5 minutes, record the sample pH to the nearest 0.01 pH unit