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Creating Your Own Lye

Three ingredients combine to make soap: lye, fat and water. Besides an ingredient in soap recipes, lye has other useful applications in the home. As a cleaning agent, it dissolves oil or protein-based deposits. Lye is often used as an oven cleaner component. It can be used as a paint stripper, but on wood it will raise the grain. Lye solutions have long been used as drain cleaning agents because they decompose soap and hair.

Wood ash lye has a different chemical makeup than commercially produced lye. Potassium hydroxide is the lye produced from wood ash. Lye manufactured for retail is called sodium hydroxide.These two products are not interchangeable. The measurements differ depending on which type of lye you are using in a recipe.

Hardwoods such as oak and maple or fruit trees like apple are the best sources for ash to produce a good quality lye. Evergreens and pine trees are not suitable woods for ash for this purpose. A hot fire should be used to fully consume the wood, creating papery, white and thin ashes without charcoal chunks.

Enough ash will be needed such that a waterproof, non-metal container can be filled to a level 3 to 4 inches below the top. The size of this container may vary from five gallons to barrel-sized.

Get 2 containers that are not metal. The first vessel will contain the ash while the second will catch the lye water. Drill a small hole near the bottom of the ash container. To stop the hole Use a non metal object such as a cork, wooden tooth pick, or a small dowel.

Layer the bottom of the ash container with river gravel. Top this with a four inch layer of packed hay, grass or straw. Fill the remainder of the bucket with wood ash (stop 3 to 4 inches below the top) and tamp it down firmly.

Collect 5 or more gallons of soft water. Having only trace amounts of minerals classifies water as soft. You can get soft water using special filters, from lava rock sources like granite or from peat or sandstone. Another alternative is to distill the water you have. A simpler method, however, is to just collect rainwater.

Secure your ash bucket in a place where it won’t be knocked over accidentally. The drainage can be caught in a glass jar, wooden bucket, or an enamel coated pan. Metal containers will react to the lye which could eat holes in the container. Place this container in such a way as to minimize any splashing.

Lye can be blinding if it touches the eye. If swallowed it can be fatal. It is possible for lye to sear all sorts of surfaces, in particular fats and oils on the skin. Fats and oils combine with lye in such a way that salts are created which cause scars, permanent injury and burns. A lack of pain may indicate that the burn is so severe as to have caused damage to nerve endings.

It is necessary to take safety precautions before you begin the process. Don’t work in an enclosed area; make sure you have good air exchange. Have contact information for emergency services and poison control on hand. Cover your skin with clothing to protect yourself. Don’t expose your arms and legs by wearing short sleeves or shorts. Protect your eyes with safety glasses and your hands with rubber gloves. Keep vinegar nearby in order to neutralize any skin burns. Washing with water worsens the effect of burns to the skin caused by lye.

Use a wooden handle or rod to press a small hole into the packed ash. Boil one of the gallons of your soft water. Carefully pour this into the ash bucket. When the water and ash combine, you will notice some boiling, splashing and spewing. When this action calms, slowly add another gallon of water to the ash bucket. If the level of the ashes sinks, add more ash to the bucket. Add enough soft water to cover the ashes in the bucket. Place a lid over the top of the ash container.

Unstop the drain hole you drilled into the ash container and allow the liquid to runoff into the other container. Draining the ash bucket could take as much as 24 hours.

On the second and third day, pour the water that has runoff of the ashes back through again. Your lye will be strengthened by this repetition.

A variation of this method is to leave the bucket sitting without draining it. Seal the bucket and leave it for three days in a place where it will not be disturbed. Make sure it is in an area where it can’t get spilled. After this time you should drain the bucket.

The resulting liquid is lye water (potassium hydroxide). To check the potency, place a newly laid egg that is still in its shell into the liquid. It should float on top with a nickel-sized or quarter-sized area exposed above the surface (2 cm to 2.5 cm diameter). A weak lye solution won’t work well in most soap recipes. A weak lye solution will allow the egg to sink. Dilute your lye solution with more rainwater should the egg bob on top of the surfaceindicating that your solution is too strong. Destroy and discard the egg when you are finished.

Heating weak lye water will strengthen your solution by reducing the water content. It is safe to use enamel finished pans for heating lye water, but these must never be used for food preparation. Watch that you don’t burn the lye when you heat the solution. If a chicken feather starts to melt when held to the hot liquid, you know your solution is the right strength. Remove the lye water from the heat to cool.

When you store lye water, don’t overfill your jars. Leaving space at the top allows for pouring later without splashes. Close jars firmly and store them in an unlit, cool area where curious children haven’t any access.

Dispose of the old leached ashes in a hole dug away from high traffic areas. The ashes should be completely cooled before you cover the hole.

To make potash crystals, place the lye water in a safe container. You’ll find that glass is a good choice for this project. Leave the container uncovered in the sun until the water evaporates. Potash requires the same safety precautions in storage as outlined for the liquid form.

This and other skills are discussed in the new book, The Vision by Debi Pearl, the compelling new novel from international best-selling author who also co-wrote To Train Up A Child and the Good and Evil comic.

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