# Wanted: Wood-Ash Lye Soap Makers



## NicolasMelas (Feb 7, 2014)

I am part of a community in Virginia that is doing urban homesteading and researching homestead skills to share with others. We also have some small cottage industries to support our community. 

We are desperately seeking to speak with someone who has made/does make wood-ash lye soap. We have the goal of making a totally local soap, from the ashes, to the tallow, to the scents and natural colorants. Online and book tuturials have only gotten us so far, and we are seeking hands on expertise to help with troubleshooting "what-ifs", calculating strength of lye and proportion of lye to tallow. We've had alot more success with comercial NaOH lye, but we want to move to wood-ash lye.

Anyone on the East Coast or the Midwest would be do-able. Does anyone know of a soapmaker that wouldn't mind talking to some novices?


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

There's a very animated discussion on this board about this.

If you are looking to sell soap using potash as the base, I highly suggest getting very good liability insurance.


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## engblom (Feb 12, 2014)

MullersLaneFarm said:


> There's a very animated discussion on this board about this.
> 
> If you are looking to sell soap using potash as the base, I highly suggest getting very good liability insurance.


This kind of soap is not more dangerous than any CP soap as with traditional soap you *wash the soap several times* and any lye residues will be washed away together with any ash residues. The washing process is called *salting out*.

CP soap with low super-fat level is actually having higher risk for ending up lye-heavy as the SAP-value is not constant from each years crop. Also, when it comes to plant oil, you find different kind of each specie. There is, for example, only one SAP value you find for olive oil, but there are many different kind of olives this oil could be made from. With a CP soap you hope you had the right amount of lye from the beginning as no lye will be washed away in the process. Also the accuracy of the scale affects the result. The chance of a lye heavy soap might be very low, but still I consider it as higher than a traditionally made soap, given it was made in a good way with proper washing with a lot of water.

I have made soap with excess lye and then successfully washed away that lye.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Although a single lye calc may have a single SAP value, you can view various calculators and see a variety of SAP values for an oil.

With sosp made using potash, it is difficult to determine the correct strength for a single batch of potash. Each batch of potash can also have varying strengths. 

When you speak of traditional soap are you describing the creamy type commonly the result of using potash? 

I (and I'm sure the OP) would love to see your technique.

I spent a summer experimenting making soap using lard & potash 15 or so years ago. The results were just too inconsistent for me.


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## engblom (Feb 12, 2014)

MullersLaneFarm said:


> Although a single lye calc may have a single SAP value, you can view various calculators and see a variety of SAP values for an oil.
> 
> With sosp made using potash, it is difficult to determine the correct strength for a single batch of potash. Each batch of potash can also have varying strengths.
> 
> ...


I made two posts describing the method: http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/6957235-post36.html and http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/6957209-post54.html

With this method you could get consistent result. You are fully right it is impossible to have the exact amount of lye, howerver this method allows to use excess of lye and still you are able to end up with a superfatted soap, if you want.

By salting out, which is absolutely needed for safety, you swap K for Na and you end up with stable bars. Each wash will remove some K.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

After reading your posts about this, I can honestly say I would quit washing before going through all that hassle. Sure makes me appreciate store bought lye and CP. Thanks for taking the time keeping some of the old knowledge alive though.


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## gweny (Feb 10, 2014)

I live in VA and have recently started making soap. I'd like to know more about it too. This community you speak of has piqued my interest. It's a bit off topic, but could please explain what and where it is? I'm also an urban homesteader and I'm looking for local, like minded peoples?


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

Here is an excellent brochure on soapmaking using potash and rendered tallow. It contains information on how to make your own potash from wood ashes and how to make soft soap with potash and how to add salt to potash soap to get hard bars.

I have made my own potash lye granules using these instructions, and made a nice soft soap using the boiling method. I added potash to water until I could float an egg in one pot, melted my fat (tallow and lard mix) in another pot, and then added equal parts lye water and fat while stirring in a third pot until it fully saponified and the excess water driven off. Then I scooped the creamy gel soap into a wide-mouth jar, ready to scoop and use.

No recipes, no instruments, no SAP tables, no math -- just roughly equal parts potash lye water and melted fat, and LOTS of stirring over the fire.n

ETA: you can make soap with the ash water and skip the steps of making granules and then "pure" potash lye water; but I find the granules make a whiter soap. When I just used the ash water, even after I filtered it through straw/cloth/coffee filters, the soap was pretty dingy gray. So I think it pays to boil down the potash water, then "burn off" the impurities, and start your soap with the homemade granules instead.


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## engblom (Feb 12, 2014)

PlicketyCat said:


> Here is an excellent brochure on soapmaking using potash and rendered tallow. It contains information on how to make your own potash from wood ashes and how to make soft soap with potash and how to add salt to potash soap to get hard bars.
> 
> I have made my own potash lye granules using these instructions, and made a nice soft soap using the boiling method. I added potash to water until I could float an egg in one pot, melted my fat (tallow and lard mix) in another pot, and then added equal parts lye water and fat while stirring in a third pot until it fully saponified and the excess water driven off. Then I scooped the creamy gel soap into a wide-mouth jar, ready to scoop and use.
> 
> ...


Salting out also helps to remove those impurities as the soap will float up to the surface and all the nasty things will remain in the water.


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