Recent content by B&E Homestead

Did you end up getting soap to separate out of this? Wish I'd have seen your post when it was new. My guess is it needed more lye.

I do try to keep tabs on what is known fact vs hearsay vs my own theories... and the "better for laundry" claim was definitely just a "maybe" floating around my head with no real facts attached. So I did a quick Google search just now and turns out it might actually be good for getting out...

Thank you for replying. I will probably try reusing some in a small batch to see how it goes. I like experimenting too. To answer some of your questions, salted out soap is better for laundry than just 0% superfat because there's no glycerine, or at least that's what I read somewhere. But I...

I made a 100% tallow and NaOH soap and salted it out for laundry soap and now I'm wondering what to do with the 2 gallons of water/salt/glycerine/lye mixture left over. Can i just put more fat and lye into it and cook it until it becomes more salted out soap? Or would the glycerine and salt...

Can I use a water infusion of witch hazel twigs in place of plain water? Will it react differently to the lye? Witch hazel is fairly high in tannins. If I distill it first the heavier tannins will be removed. Wondering if that would make a difference. If anybody has experience with this or...

What I like so much about cast iron sinks is that a sinkful of water holds its temperature for a long time. That comes in handy when trying to keep a pot of milk at exactly 90 degrees for an hour to make cheese, or when just doing dishes. I am a little concerned about chipping and scuffing. We...

Thank you! The cast iron is my favorite and probably what I'll be using for putting the spatulas and pots or bowls in till I can wash them so that was the answer I was hoping for. Good idea. Wood is a concern for me too. My husband plans to build at least one wood countertop, and one of my...

We are building a house and I'm thinking about kitchen sink options, wanting to make sure I don't choose something that could be damaged by lye in the process of making soap and cleaning up from it. My options are cast iron, or the plastic utility type sinks used for laundry, or stainless steel...

The way I understand it, they can say anything they want a long the lines of "this herb has been used for..." because that is just a historical fact. As long as they don't say, " this soap is good for..." they aren't making a medical claim. At least that is how I remember reading the laws...

CO. - Coconut oil???

Thank you for the video. That is very helpful. I am wondering now, what percentage of purity is still useable, and if my lye is below that percentage can I still make soap with it just using a little more lye? Like if my lye turns out to be 75% pure, I would assume that means it is 25% water. Is...

I have some pretty old lye that has never been opened but is hard and clumpy nonetheless. I guess the plastic container it came in wasn't sealed. Is there a way to test it? Perhaps measuring the temperature change in the water when the lye is mixed into it? And if it doesn't get hot enough...