Help PH chicken or the egg?

[90Gizmo]

I know everyone has worked past this but I'm hung up right at the start. My new PH meter includes three calibration powders to be mixed with distilled water. But my distilled water measures (using a chemical kit) a little under 6.0 ... Is this going to throw off my calibration or does something compensate for it? TIA!

 

[Bowhunterwoody]

Powders are buffered. No problem for distilled.

 

[Rwise]

You can boil the distilled water to off gas the co2 that builds up in it causing it to be acidic.
But Distilled water cannot be accurately PH tested as there is nothing in it to read.

 

[3Berries]

No real need to do a three step calibration if almost all your measurements will be 6-8pH. And get some KCL probe storage fluid to keep the bulb wet when not in use. It seems to make it react a lot faster that when I stored it in 7.0 buffer.