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Soap & Candle Making

Lye

15 years ago

Has anyone made their own lye, the old fashioned way, with a barrel full of hardwood leaves or ashes leeched in water? I've done a lot of research into it over the past year or so. I want to try this with tallow to make soap the way our ancestors did, and outside over a fire.

(lol! I will, however, still use my trusy stick blender instead of a wooden paddle.) I'd like to start a soap making workshop on our small farm at some point.

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Comments (4)

Brent B
15 years ago
You know that you are wanting to make potassium hydroxide with the wood ash (used liquid soap), vice sodium hydroxide that cold process soap makers use producing a harder bar.

Good luck with this venture though, it is commendable(as well as interesting).
chemgeek
15 years ago
You'll be wanting fresh, well-burned ashes from hardwoods. The solutions of lye suck up carbon dioxide very rapidly and leave you with potassium carbonate instead of the hydroxide (lye). Plan to do the burning, leaching, boiling down, and actually making the soap all in a row, or have large, airtight containers to store it in between steps. These soaps tend to be very harsh on skin (since you're only guessing at the amount of lye that you have), but make good laundry soap.
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Many products used for cleaning drains or where not specifically shown to be pure soduium hydroxide will contain additional products. In the case of drain cleaners addatives to cause foaming so as to distribute the sodium hydroxide include: aluminum pieces. This creates hydrogen gas bubbles and helps to distribute the sodium hydroxide liquid. I believe every dry drain cleaner I've seen contains aluminum pieces. New develpments , Jul 2009, are moving towards creating a foam to distribute the sodium hydroxide. This keeps it in contact with the plug more easily than if it were a liquid. Please add SPECIFIC sites and names with upc codes if you find a pure product for any thread where someone is looking for a pure product. Thankfully it's often the case that a low quality product is taken from the same assembly line as the higher quality products. It's simply eaiser to do this as the level of quality is not different and creating a 2nd or third assembly line makes no financial sense. I believe this is done for antibiotics used for fish and humans both come from the same assembly line and are simply packaged separately.
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A General Question about Lye and Potash
Q
Comments (1)
First, there is a big difference between wood ashes and potash. Potash is the term given to mined or manufactured mineral salts that contain potassium in a soluble form. Potassium chloride (KCl) is the most common form. In a few cases, potash can be extracted from plant remains - like ashes. Wood ashes generally contain a very small amount of potash - less than 10%. They are primarily calcium carbonate, a common liming material used to increase soil pH. And a little wood ash goes a long way - the recommended application rate is 15-20lb per 1000sf or about the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket. Wood ashes should only be applied directly to the garden if your soil pH is below 7. Better to use as a component in your compost operation. Potassium tends to move through most soils very slowly so unless you are doing a lot of heavy cropping, there is typically sufficient levels available in the existing soil. It is always a good idea to test your soil before applying, perhaps unnecessarily, and certainly if you are uncertain about the soil pH and contemplate adding wood ashes. Lye is a very corrosive alkaline compound that is known as 'caustic soda' or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Historically, it used to be made from potassium hydroxide (KOH), but that process proved to be inefficient and is no longer in practice. To my knowledge, lye has NO use in the garden and using it for any purpose should be undertaken with great care.
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RE: Advice - Using Glycerin instead of lye?
Q
Comments (5)
Hi - Thanks for responding - below is the reason for my question. Tell me, what you think? Thanks -Tina_2 Coconut & Olive Soap This recipe has been revised by Christin Ocasio, Owner, Wyndham Soapworks. See her notes in sidebar. 1 cup olive oil 1 cup coconut oil 1 cup melted tallow (animal fat) 2 tbsp lye (heaping) (*NOTE) 1/2 cup cold soft water has been changed to: 8 oz weight olive oil 8 oz weight coconut oil 8 oz weight rendered tallow 3.49 oz weight sodium hydroxide (pure lye) Red Devil brand 100% lye (*NOTE)scroll to bottom. 9 fluid oz water While wearing safety goggles and neoprene gloves, combine solid lye and liquid, stir well. Set aside and allow to cool (100Â° F to 125Â° F). This is best done outside while you are standing upwind. Combine oils and heat gently. Once the fats and oils are melted allow the temperature to drop to 100Â° F to 125Â° F. Combine lye solution and melted oils. Be careful not to splash while combining the mixtures. Stir until the mixture traces. If tracing takes more than 15 minutes, which it often does, stir for the first 15 minutes, then stir for 5 minutes at 15 minute intervals. Tracing looks like a slightly thickened custard, not instant pudding but a cooked custard. It will support a drop, or your stir marks for several seconds. Once tracing occurs... Pour raw soap into your prepared molds. After a few days the soap can be turned out of the mold. If the soap is very soft, allow it to cure for a few days to firm the outside. Cut soap into bars and set the bars out to cure and dry. This will allow the bar to firm and finish saponification. Place the bars on something that will allow them to breathe. Note: If you don't want to mess with tallow and lye, you can substitute shavings from any white unscented soap
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Source for bulk lye
Q
Comments (1)
If you don't want to pay for shipping to your area, then some foot work would be in order. The only way some one here could help you is to know your area and sources of lye within. Sorry.
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simplemary
15 years ago
I remember doing this as a kid. We built a v-shaped trough out of two boards which ran on a slant from a barrel with a spigot at the bottom into another, smaller basin below. We put the fireplace ash in the top & poured water over it, let it run down the trough into the other basin. I remember pouring the lower basin back into the top barrel many times-- I guess to increase the strength of the lye. I remember the soap we made from it was really really hard & brittle & harsh & it seemed to sit on the shelf curing forever (although I think it was really probably just a standard 6 weeks). I have absolutely no idea where my mother got the recipe from or what it actually was, except that we also rendered the fat from months of bacon grease. I do remember we fragranced the soap by wrapping it in old teeshirts soaked in perfume. I STILL remember what it smelled like 40 some years later!
Brent B
15 years ago
simplemary,

I would guess that this soap would have been very deadly for the "potty mouths"!

And, probably hard on clothes.

I think that most pioneers would just measure with ladles to a certain ratio of the lye vice rendered fats.
It's interesting that someone would like to go through the old process, as I would.

Making items the "Old Fashion way" catches my interest in most things.

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