Tallow and Wood ash Soap not setting

[WiscChik]

Hello,
So m new here but I’m going to jump right in.

I’ve made my first batch of soap after rendering tallow and extracting lye out of wood ash. The problem is, it’s not turning hard. It did trace and then I poured into the molds but it’s still soft like modeling clay. Is there something wrong with this formula?

133 grams lye
266 grams water
1000 grams lard/tallow
30 grams essential oil

 

[DeeAnna]

You cannot make soap using an ash-based lye with a normal cold or hot process method. You have to use a trial-and-error method called the "boiled" method. There are two reasons for this:

The recipe you followed is purely a guess because you don't have accurate information about the alkali content in the ash-based lye. The boiled method allows you to add more lye or more fat as you cook the soap for a long time. The endpoint is reached when your periodic "zap" tests show the fat is entirely saponified and the final soap has little or no excess alkali.

Ash-based lye is a mixture of carbonate alkalis -- mostly potassium carbonate with a bit of sodium carbonate -- not hydroxide alkali (KOH or NaOH.) Carbonate alkalis require the lye and fat mixture to be heated and stirred a long time to force the saponification reaction. That is the second reason why you need to use a boiled method.

You need an experienced granny or grandpa to stand at your elbow to do a decent job of making soap using ash-based lye. Since there's a major lack of that kind of teaching and support, you'd do yourself a big favor if you first learned soap making using store-bought NaOH. You can get decent support and advice from the soap makers here who do that type of soap making all the time -- let them advise you about problems and celebrate your successes. Then once you have some experience and better skills, branch out into using ash-based lye.

 

[bookworm42]

I would assume your lye is not 100% if it's from wood ash. (Not positive as I've never tried it)

Editing to back up @DeeAnna since she posted as I was typing and I would trust her with my soapmaking life

 

[squidstings]

Hello,
So m new here but I’m going to jump right in.

I’ve made my first batch of soap after rendering tallow and extracting lye out of wood ash. The problem is, it’s not turning hard. It did trace and then I poured into the molds but it’s still soft like modeling clay. Is there something wrong with this formula?

Sounds like it might be a salvageable batch. Or at least something you can still learn process with? I'm rooting for you.

Just had this come up in a thread recently. I hope you keep at it. And share updates. I'm very interested.