Hertzyscowicz
Member
For the past couple of days I've tried as many batches of wood ash lye soap. I mentioned this in my introduction post, and MikeInPdx at least wanted to be kept posted on that. So, here's my experiences so far, with batches made in a half-gallon pot:
The method I've used for making wood ash lye so far has been to mix water and wood ash at about 1:1 ratio with the ash uncompressed and to boil it for about fifteen minutes. This yielded lye that at least turned my liquid pH indicator dark purple. I've had success using simple household paper towels to filter the ashes out. Poorly filtered wood ash lye may result in ash residue in the soap, which kind of defeats the purpose.
The two tries I had with liquid oils, rapeseed and olive, have been somewhat unsuccesful. I'm pretty sure neither of the oils even saponified. In the case of Olive oil it may be because I added baking soda during the boiling, to mimic the Sodium carbonate that's found in the Marseille soap's mix. Unfortunately, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate which neutralizes NaOH. I was hoping it would degrade in the heat to form sodium carbonate. It might have turned out different if I had boiled it in a separate kettle.
I have had more success with solid oils, namely beef tallow and coconut butter. The batch I made with beef tallow stank to high heaven and the excessive dose of peppermint oil only made matters worse.
I just poured the coconut batch to cool down and precipitate, so I can't tell how successful it was. What I can tell, though, is that mint leaves double as a nice dye when added during the boildown phase of HP. Also, dithering with household vinegar revealed that the .8-litre batch of wood ash lye only had about 5 grams of NaOH.
Sorry about not posting pictures, I'll see if I can find a camera later.
The method I've used for making wood ash lye so far has been to mix water and wood ash at about 1:1 ratio with the ash uncompressed and to boil it for about fifteen minutes. This yielded lye that at least turned my liquid pH indicator dark purple. I've had success using simple household paper towels to filter the ashes out. Poorly filtered wood ash lye may result in ash residue in the soap, which kind of defeats the purpose.
The two tries I had with liquid oils, rapeseed and olive, have been somewhat unsuccesful. I'm pretty sure neither of the oils even saponified. In the case of Olive oil it may be because I added baking soda during the boiling, to mimic the Sodium carbonate that's found in the Marseille soap's mix. Unfortunately, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate which neutralizes NaOH. I was hoping it would degrade in the heat to form sodium carbonate. It might have turned out different if I had boiled it in a separate kettle.
I have had more success with solid oils, namely beef tallow and coconut butter. The batch I made with beef tallow stank to high heaven and the excessive dose of peppermint oil only made matters worse.
I just poured the coconut batch to cool down and precipitate, so I can't tell how successful it was. What I can tell, though, is that mint leaves double as a nice dye when added during the boildown phase of HP. Also, dithering with household vinegar revealed that the .8-litre batch of wood ash lye only had about 5 grams of NaOH.
Sorry about not posting pictures, I'll see if I can find a camera later.
