At https://www.catsfork.com/CatsKitchen/lime-water I see a technique from a cookbook called Nourishing Traditions for soaking cornmeal in 'lime water', created from pickling lime (calcium hydroxide, aka "cal"). The technique starts by preparing a quart of lime water by adding a quart of filtered water to something like a half a cup of pickling lime powder, sharing, letting the powder settle out, and then using the water obtained by pouring the liquid portion off of the settled solids.
I am confused because according to the solubility table at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_table, something like 2 grams of calcium hydroxide would be expected to dissolve in a quart of water. That's basically one mL of calcium hydroxide that is expected to dissolve; why would you use a half cup (which is approximately a hundred times that amount)?
Am I missing something about the technique? Is there a reason why using a dramatic surplus might be anything other than wasteful?