Somewhere I have a bar of her soap and it is not rancid. It got brown and is very hard. My mom was born in 1910. I imagine that she learn to make soap from one of her ancestors. I am sure she did not know the chemical composition of brass. She used what she had, and once a year, after butchering a hog, she made soap. A lot of soap - to do her laundry. My dad would only bathe with her soap, including washing his hair, and he had a full head of hair till he died in his 80s. I still have that brass pot. No, rust, no holes. I use to use it to dye yarn when I was a weaver. The brass imparted nice tones to my natural dyes.
New guy with questions, lye and lard soap
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What a wonderful piece of personal history you have - soap that your mom made! That's so cool.
Now, I've seen soap demonstrations at several historical places, and while we were never able to buy or sample it (hmm....wonder if it wasn't reliably safe enough. The goal of the demonstration may have been more visual, rather than producing a usable/pleasant product). And that soap (if I remember - it's been about 30 years!) was thick but gooey, and brown.
Also, in the 90s when I first found out a few people were making soap at home, I would occasionally see some soap at farmer's markets....and I DO accurately remember them being brown (dark caramel) and ugly. No white bars, certainly no vibrant crayon type colors....just various shades of brown. I wonder why?
Cheese
Member
Thanks for the info! We used an old enamel coated pot to cook it. I'm wondering if the wax coating on the wooden molds was partially saponified and caused it to bind to the soap? I dunno, but wax doesn't work. I don't know what they used in the old days, I might make the molds in such a way that they can be taken apart to get the soap out. I tried to find freezer paper at the grocery store but I guess that's not a common item anymore and they don't stock it.
I think next time I try to make the lye solution, I will boil the ashes and water for a while to get a stronger extract and see how that does. It's odd that the PH was so high with my fist try, and it was slippery and had strong cleaning properties, but wouldn't saponify the oils.
I think next time I try to make the lye solution, I will boil the ashes and water for a while to get a stronger extract and see how that does. It's odd that the PH was so high with my fist try, and it was slippery and had strong cleaning properties, but wouldn't saponify the oils.
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Parchment works fairly well. Oil cloth might be more available to you. Skip to about 2' 30" to hear her talk about oil cloth
Cheese
Member
As far as the old soap being brown: when you make a lye solution from wood ash, it makes a brown colored liquid. The lard is also creme colored, so I can't see it being anything but some shade of brown. Mine has all been light though. Maybe I didn't use enough of the lye solution? Dang, I wish I had some more, I'd try it. It would take a lot to get the brown color that I've seen on other primitive soap. Maybe I just didn't add enough. I used all my hardwood ashes, so I guess next time I fire up the smokehouse, I'll make more.
Just to clarify - mom's soap would be ivory when poured and ivory when cut. This old bar I have of hers has aged and now is a caramel color.
Cheese, I don't know if this is pertinent or not but mom always said that the enamel should not be chipped - no metal should come in contact with the raw soap. I'm not a chemist, nor was she, but she was very clear about this - saying it would harm the soap. I love that this thread has brought back these memories of her and her hard working ways. She was a gift.
Another thing you can line your mold with is oilcloth. It might feel a bit more traditional than freezer paper or plastic or mylar, which is so much more modern. Oil cloth has been around a very long time and you can still buy it by the yard at fabric stores. Or you can cut up an oilcloth table cloth. Cut to fit and re-use for ages on ages as a mold liner. I have a video on using oilcloth as a soap mold liner in my media section. I'll link it below:
ETA: Oops, I didn't read on to the next page! My link was superfluous. Sorry!
ETA: Oops, I didn't read on to the next page! My link was superfluous. Sorry!
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@Cheese I'm not sure if you understood what DeeAnna was trying to convey to you. Wood ash lye gives paste/gel type soap. Not bars. If you want bars, you need to use sodium hydroxide (NaOH). I learned that from my father who used to help make the soap in his family when growing up during the depression. That's why I was never tempted to make it that way once I started making soap.
Like I said in one of my earlier posts in this thread, wood ash lye is not potassium hydroxide, KOH. It is mostly potassium carbonate, K2CO3. Potassium carbonate can be used directly to make soap, but only if you heat and stir it sufficiently long enough. You cannot do a cold process or even a hot process soap with wood ash lye. The saponification must be done as a boiled process.
The pH measurement tells you nothing about concentration -- pH is not remotely accurate enough. For example, a 1% NaOH solution has a pH over 13, so if your pH test, assuming it's accurate, shows 13+, the only thing you know is the concentration is over 1%. The relationship between pH and concentration for KOH is similar . K2CO3 has a lower maximum pH at saturation concentration, but again the trend is the same.
You can measure the solution density to get a better idea of concentration (aka floating an egg or using a hydrometer) or you can do a titration with an acid solution to test the concentration directly. But pH isn't useful.
I rest my case. When soap turns brown with time, that is evidence it is oxidizing and becoming rancid. That's no indictment of your mother's soap -- it's just a sign of the natural decomposition process of fats and soap. Since soap is a natural product, it's not immune to decomposition.
My brother has some of my grandmother's lard soap. It started out white but over the decades it has also become brown and very hard, just like your mother's. It's no shame that their soap is gradually deteriorating -- it's just a fact of nature.
All I'm saying is it's not a good idea to use equipment or utensils made of copper, brass, or other copper containing metals to make soap, because copper accelerates the rate of oxidation and rancidity. If people want their soap to have the longest shelf life, one effective rule is to avoid copper.
We have a lot of newcomers reading this forum, and it's important to pass on good information to those people.
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I rest my case. When soap turns brown with time, that is evidence it is oxidizing and becoming rancid. That's no indictment of your mother's soap -- it's just a sign of the natural decomposition process of fats and soap. Since soap is a natural product, it's not immune to decomposition.
My brother has some of my grandmother's lard soap. It started out white but over the decades it has also become brown and very hard, just like your mother's. It's no shame that their soap is gradually deteriorating -- it's just a fact of nature.
All I'm saying is it's not a good idea to use equipment or utensils made of copper, brass, or other copper containing metals to make soap, because copper accelerates the rate of oxidation and rancidity. If people want their soap to have the longest shelf life, one effective rule is to avoid copper.
We have a lot of newcomers reading this forum, and it's important to pass on good information to those people.
Cheese
Member
I have heard from a couple people that the wood ash method only makes soft soap, but there are lots of videos and instructions online about how to make hard soap this way too. If it can be done, I intend to figure it out. I know the PH test isn't conclusive and I did measure the specific gravity by floating an egg but that's about all I can do. It still wasn't able to saponify the oil, even to make soft soap. I tried washing with it several times and it was like I was washing my hands with lard... no soap-like qualities at all. We tried again with tallow with the same results. I'm not convinced we have reached the peak of what can be done with this primitive method yet. I am convinced that my lye solution didn't have the proper qualities though. I'll continue soon, there may be enough ashes in my fireplace to try another batch, not sure. Right now I need to spend some time picking in the garden, the green beans are making like crazy and I need to harvest and dry several herbs before they get too old and tough. As always, it's a fun learning experience.
Oh, here is one of the sites that I've been referring to about this process, if you're interested:
https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/
The soap they show is brown too.
Oh, here is one of the sites that I've been referring to about this process, if you're interested:
https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/
The soap they show is brown too.
No need to reinvent the wheel. The answer is already in the link you provided --
"...Wood ash soap is usually really soft. Depending on the type of wood used, you might not be able to get it to set into a bar at all. One trick for making hard soap is to add salt. Use ½ tsp of salt per pound of fat (1lb is roughly 2 cups melted fat). Note that some soapmakers use a lot more salt – as much as 3 tsp per cup of fat...."
I have a friend that regularly uses salt in her soap. I have heard that salt cuts down on suds. Is that true?
Yes, it can if you are making conventional soap with a sodium alkali (NaOH, in other words.) If enough salt is used and the salt largely remains in the soap, the soap typically won't lather well because many types of sodium soap are insoluble in salt water.
You can compensate by using more coconut oil in the recipe. Coconut oil contains a lot of lauric and myristic acids, and soap made from these fatty acids is still still soluble in a salt brine. In other words, a soap that is high in coconut oil will still lather well in salt water. This is the reason why mariner's soap is traditionally 100% coconut oil and why many salt soaps and solseife/brine soaps use a high % of coconut oil.
But this thread is discussing a slightly different chemical process -- making soap with a potassium alkali. You can't really compare the two. Adding salt to a potassium soap converts some of the potassium soap to sodium soap. If the soap doesn't lather well as a potassium soap, it won't lather well as a sodium soap, but it will be firmer. If it lathers decently well as a potassium soap, it should lather tolerably well as a sodium soap, especially if some of the excess sodium and potassium are removed by "salting out."
You can compensate by using more coconut oil in the recipe. Coconut oil contains a lot of lauric and myristic acids, and soap made from these fatty acids is still still soluble in a salt brine. In other words, a soap that is high in coconut oil will still lather well in salt water. This is the reason why mariner's soap is traditionally 100% coconut oil and why many salt soaps and solseife/brine soaps use a high % of coconut oil.
But this thread is discussing a slightly different chemical process -- making soap with a potassium alkali. You can't really compare the two. Adding salt to a potassium soap converts some of the potassium soap to sodium soap. If the soap doesn't lather well as a potassium soap, it won't lather well as a sodium soap, but it will be firmer. If it lathers decently well as a potassium soap, it should lather tolerably well as a sodium soap, especially if some of the excess sodium and potassium are removed by "salting out."
Thank you DeeAnna, I hope you don't mind me saying this but you're better than Wikipedia!
Just began using oilcloth after seeing a post here (I believe). It works great and can be cleaned and re-used! Love it!
Cheese
Member
Thanks. Yes, as mentioned earlier, I did use salt in the process too. We used 1 teaspoon per cup of lard in all three attempts.
My lye solution just wasn't right. The specific gravity test isn't really too conclusive either, because it just shows you how dense the liquid is. It could be dense with sulfur, or potassium carbonate, or just a high concentration of particulates that made it through the ash leaching process. Some of it was potassium hydroxide but who knows how much. I think that's what happened, it boiled down to a high concentration of other particulates and compounds but not enough potassium from the ash. Without sophisticated equipment, I can only think and speculate, but next try might support the theory.
My lye solution just wasn't right. The specific gravity test isn't really too conclusive either, because it just shows you how dense the liquid is. It could be dense with sulfur, or potassium carbonate, or just a high concentration of particulates that made it through the ash leaching process. Some of it was potassium hydroxide but who knows how much. I think that's what happened, it boiled down to a high concentration of other particulates and compounds but not enough potassium from the ash. Without sophisticated equipment, I can only think and speculate, but next try might support the theory.
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