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Lye made from wood ash is potassium hydroxide, not sodium hydroxide -- there's 10 times
as much potassium as sodium in wood ash.
The process makes lye water. If you boiled off all the water you could use it as the catalyst
to make biodiesel, but you'd need more accurate pH measures than those listed below. The
usual pH meter or litmus papers would do. See also Natural test papers.
If you try this, we'd be very interested to know the results -- please contact us.
1) White Ashes
Dried palm branches, dried out banana peels, cocoa pods, kapok tree wood, oak wood, (or
for really white soap, apple tree wood) make the best lye ashes. Ordinary wood used in
cooking fires will do.
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Whatever wood is used, it should be burned in a very hot fire to make very white ashes.
When cold, these are stored in a covered plastic bucket or wooden barrel, or stainless steel
container. If these are not available, a clay pot-jar which has been fired in a pottery making
kiln (not just dried in the sun).
A wooden drum or barrel which has a tap at the right is best.
2) Soft Water
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Water from a spring or from showers of rain is called "soft water", because it does not have
metallic or acidic chemicals in it.
This makes it useful for soap making, as there are no other chemicals in it which would get
in the way of making soap.
"Ordinary" bore, well, or river water can be used for making soap, but this will sometimes
need to have a "washing soda" or "baking soda" added to it. Otherwise some of the
chemicals in the water will get in the way of making the soap.
If you are using "ordinary" water and you want to test it to see if some soda needs to be
added, simply try to make soap bubble up (foam) in it.
If the soap easily foams up, the water is probably ok as it is.
If not, try adding a little bit of soda at a time stirring it to make it disappear, until the water
will foam the soap up.
Then add the same amount of soda to the same amounts of the water that you wish to use to
make the soap. For example, if you were testing a 1/4 (a quarter) of a bucket of water, and
you ended up needing 1/8 (an eighth) of a cup of soda, then you would need 4/8 ( or
1/2-half) a cup of soda for a full bucket of "ordinary" water.
However you have got it, store the "soft water" in covered wooden, plastic, or stainless steel
buckets or containers. (Again, a clay-jar as described above can be used if needed.)
"Safe" Containers
Any of the types of containers, buckets, barrels or jars described in the White Ashes or Soft
Water sections are called "safe containers".
If you are going to use a large barrel or drum to make the lye water in, and it has a tap or
hole at the right, place some kind of filter on the inside of the barrel around the opening.
Fill the barrel with white ashes to about four inches (10 cm or 0.1 metre) below the top.
Appropriate technology
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Boil half (1/2) a bucket full of soft water (about 10 pints or six litres), and pour over the
ashes.
Slowly add more cold soft water until liquid drips out of the barrel. Close the tap or block
the hole.
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Add more ashes to top the barrel up again, and more soft water. Do not add so much water
that the ashes swim.
Leave to stand for four or more hours (or overnight if you have the time). Later pour the
brownish lye water into a plastic or other "safe" container(s). Then pour back through the
ashes again. Let the lye water drip into "safe" containers.
When the brown lye water stops coming out of the barrel, or ash container, then pour four to
five pints (2-1/2 to three litre) of soft water through the ashes, collecting the lye which
comes out in a separate "safe" container (as this lye may be weaker than the first lot).
Repeat this using two to three pints (one to two litres) of soft water, until no more brown
liquid comes out of the ashes.
Either put the lye into "safe" bottles, or cover the "safe" containers which it is in. Dig the
ashes into the vegetable garden.
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9/11/15, 11:34 AM
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The hardest part was in determining if the lye was of the correct strength, as we have said. In
order to learn this, the soap maker floated either a potato or an egg in the lye. If the object
floated with a specified amount of its surface above the lye solution, the lye was declared fit
for soap making. Most of the colonists felt that lye of the correct strength would float a
potato or an egg with an area the size of a ninepence (about the size of a modern quarter)
above the surface. To make a weak lye stronger, the solution could either be boiled down
more or the lye solution could be poured through a new batch of ashes. To make a solution
weaker, water was added.
From Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques -- The Soap Factory
http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html
"When a fresh egg floats with a nickel-sized to quarter-sized area above the surface, the
liquor is ready for soap making." -- Homestead mailing list.
Nickel = 2 cm diameter
Quarter = 2.5 cm diameter
At the turn of the last century lye was obtained by leaching water through wood ashes. At
best, the concentration of potassium hydroxide in the resulting lye water was always
questionable. My grandmother said that she could tell if the lye water was the right strength
by using the wing feather pulled from her favorite goose. She would pour the lye water into
a 30 gallon cooking pot and heat the solution. Next she would touch the feather to the
heating lye. If the feather dissolved, the lye was strong enough to dissolve pig fat.
-- Soap Making Today
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Copyright of all original material on this website is the property of Keith Addison, unless otherwise stated. It may not be
copied or distributed without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. All material is provided as is without
guarantees or warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.
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