Lye is very caustic, and actually isn't present at all once the soap goes through the saponification process.
I don't recommend using it. Would the egg test help? Here's an article with some testing methods. Share Tweet Pin. Y our mixture has a layer of grease on the top. Make sure it is warm enough to liquefy the grease.
Make sure you used hardwood ashes, not softwood ashes. I did this, oops! Brown water pools under your bars during the air dry phase. The finished soap has a thin layer of white dust on the top.
Just rinse off this extra lye with water before using. Dip in water and air dry several times to help it adjust. How did it turn out? Or maybe you like making your own soap already, but wished you had some more step by step tutorials on using clay, scents, and textures?
Want To Raise Happy Chickens? Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. Email Address. Click here to cancel reply. Kathryn Saturday 15th of May Not Helpful 16 Helpful If the lye will eat through plastic, will it damage the plastic drain pipes when used for cleaning them?
Pipes in your home are poly vinyl chloride PVC , which may be susceptible to lye damage over a long period of time, but this depends on the concentration of lye and the contact time. When you clean your drains with lye , either they are backed up with water, which dilutes your lye, or they are slow draining, which means the lye does not spend as much time in the drain. Either way, it is safe for use with PVC drain lines. Not Helpful 2 Helpful Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.
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Article Summary X To make lye water, drill 6 small holes in the base of a barrel and place a inch layer of stones on the bottom of the barrel. Deutsch: Lauge herstellen. Italiano: Fare la Liscivia. Nederlands: Loog maken. Bahasa Indonesia: Membuat Lindi. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 1,, times. Ash is procured from the local university bio power plant, and tallow from the local locker plant is rendered.
Your directions and illustrations made me very confident as I proceeded. Thank you! Rated this article:. More reader stories Hide reader stories. Did this article help you? Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Neil Thielke Jun 6, Kevin Sowrey May 27, The basic chemistry set is demystified, and it can be seen that our most basic fundamental chemicals are on hand with a key given by your site and like sites.
Great stuff. John Henson Feb 2. This soap is virtually unobtainable these days. Mohamed Omer Jun 24, You guys are really great. Keep it up. Florence Laquerre Mar 15, This was a very detailed and an easy read. The world is changing, and it's nice to know how to make things for ourselves on our own. Share yours! More success stories Hide success stories. By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy.
The ash of hardwoods, grasses, and agricultural crop wastes can produce more potash compared with ash from softwoods or coal. Ash from grasses and ag wastes can be a good source of potash, as good or better than wood ash. Wood produces roughly 0. The chemical composition of wood ash and the purity and concentration of the potash solution will vary depending on the species of wood, growing conditions, temperature of the fire, completeness of combustion, how the ash is stored, etc.
Ignoring carbon C , calcium Ca is the most abundant element in the ash of inland woods. Potassium K and magnesium Mg are the next most common components. Of these elements, potassium and sodium are of most interest to soap makers. The potassium content in inland wood ash averaged 2.
Wood ash contains sodium in much smaller amounts, with an average of 0. Use hardwoods rather than softwoods if possible. Hardwoods tend to produce more ash by weight, although the numbers vary a lot.
If all you have is softwood ash, however, by all means use it. Just understand you may have to do more to concentrate the lye until it is strong enough for soap making. Burn the wood to a "white" ash that has the fewest impurities. Avoid dark gray or black ash or ash that still contains charcoal or partly unburned wood. Burn the wood at the lowest temperature that still produces white ash.
You would think a very hot fire is the best way to produce "white" ash for making lye, but high combustion temperatures cause the potassium carbonate K2CO3 in the ash to decompose into potassium oxide K2O and carbon dioxide CO2 gases. One study reported " A significant decrease in the potassium concentration is observed at temperatures greater than C [ F] Another study stated " When the temperature was increased from to C [ to F] the loss K, S, B, Na and Cu [potassium, sulfur, boron, sodium and copper] Avoid heating the ash any longer than necessary , again to prevent the loss of valuable potassium and sodium from the ash.
To collect the best ash for soap making, consider removing the white ash from the stove or fireplace after every fire. Store ash intended for soap making in an airtight, water-tight, alkali-resistant container. For best results, protect ash from the carbon dioxide and moisture in fresh air until it is time to make the potash solution. The potash solution needs to be fairly concentrated to make soap. It can be concentrated in two ways.
A weak potash solution can be concentrated by reusing it to leach the ash several times rather than by using fresh water each time. Another way to concentrate the lye is to boil the potash solution to remove excess water. Some people even boiled the potash to dryness. Soap makers historically did not measure the concentration of the lye directly; they checked it indirectly by measuring the density of the solution.
Hydrometer test. More fortunate soap makers used a hydrometer to measure the density. This is the same glass gadget that beer and wine makers use to estimate the alcohol content of their beverages. Low-tech density tests. A low-tech time-honored alternative to the hydrometer is to see how a a freshly laid egg floats in the lye. A concentrated lye is more dense heavier than water or weak lye, so buoyant things such as eggs and hydrometers float higher in a concentrated lye and sink deeper in a weak lye.
Unfortunately, most people do not have access to freshly laid eggs; most grocery store eggs are several weeks old, and the density of eggs changes as the eggs age. You can "calibrate" a grocery store egg with a solution of table salt and water. The specific gravity of a freshly laid chicken egg is about 1.
Older eggs become less dense, so more of the shell will show about the liquid. To calibrate an egg that is not freshly laid, mix 5 grams of sodium chloride in enough room-temperature water to make a total of grams of solution.
Since acid rapidly rusts metals the mixing bowl would preferably be plastic. Warming the water and rendered fat will improve the mixing and speed up the process. I am wondering the same thing.
What is the general proportion of fat to lye water? I would want to make sure the saponification process completed by using all the lye so the soap isn't dangerous and burn. Nicolas, Lightly offered some great idea. To make them happen, try the website hispanicherbs. As well as some cool herbalism classes, which can be taken in person or online. Happy New Year!
Nicolas, you could also try any well-known herbal community for both soapmaking and an interesting look at traditional ways. Herbalists and "forest-folk" those who love plants and their wild habitats deeply -- the ones scattered across the United States right now, still practicing old traditions from whatever cultures' grandmothers' passed-down wisdom -- will likely be very happy that someone's taking an interest.
If you can find those that live pretty simply, without many modern trappings woodstove, etc.? Not sure about the east coast. You can probably find people in N. Carolina and the Midwest. The northeast is pretty urbanized. I'm mostly familiar with the western half of the U. Perhaps at most; my grandparents are from a different country, but my father grew up on a farm, and his mother knew the local herbs. Would go gathering in the mountains.
People in the United States and Europe ate things like chicory and other not-very-well-known easily gatherable edible wild greens in the 's and 's. So, come to think of it, if you're wanting to find out about traditional ways of living, learning about the ways of some herbalists seems like a good avenue to explore down anyway.
Plus, it's good to know about the really effective, common "weeds" one can gather: comfrey, plantain, yarrow, etc. And, feeling an herbal salve made out of common plants heal and stop the pain in a common large bruise, cut, or insect string is one of the coolest things that you kind of have to experience yourself. Like Neosporin, but better. Waco, TX www. Online tutorials only get you so far when it comes to trouble-shooting, and calculating strength of lye, and calculating proportions for lye, tallow, water and additives.
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