Im always fascinated in learning new things about stoves and I thought Id share this with you……
WOOD ASH SOAP Wood Ash mixed with water produces lye, which can then be mixed with animal fat to make soap. You simply have to add boiling soft water to your ash, allow it to sit for a few days, and drain the lye out of the mixture. You know that it’s alkaline enough to go forward with the soap-making process when an egg will float in it. Once you’ve extracted the lye, it’s just a matter of cooking it down with rendered animal fat. Softwood ash produces a soft soap and hardwood ash produces a firmer soap. Add salt to make it even firmer. A cord of wood can produce up to 50 pounds of ash so if you burn wood all winter and spring, you’re going to have plenty of ash at your disposal! Taken from
Another great site to show you how to make it with step by step detail is https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/
You see rain water in wood ash is pretty akin to Potassium Hydroxide, a lye (Ph. 14), which when stirred into fat causes saponification… I had the basis of home made wood ash soap! Made by the hot tub for the hot tub – a closed loop system.
While this may be a relatively easy process, its also a process which should be approached with care. You see, lye (sodium hydroxide) is formed when wood ash (which is mostly potassium carbonate) is mixed with water. The mixed solution is extremely alkaline and if it comes in contact with your skin, it begins to absorb the oils and turns your skin into soap. Its pretty painful so before I ever begin, I make sure that I have vinegar nearby to neutralize the burn if the solution does happen to come in contact with my skin. I also wear rubber gloves and goggles in case there is any splash back during the mixing process.
Thats it! We store the crystalized lye in a mason jar and cap it for the next time that we want to make soap, clean out our drains or our oven. Ill post another blog within the coming weeks on pressing your own oils for soap making and finally with a post outlining the soap making process itself. In the mean time, do something productive with your fireplace ashes instead of just throwing them aside.
On our campus, we constantly have our wood burning stoves going throughout the winter months and we generate quite a lot of ash. This is great because this wood ash can be turned into lye, which is one of the primary ingredients in soap. Lye is also commercially used to clean drains and ovens and is quite valuable to have around the house. In this post, Im going to show you how to make your own with minimal materials.
3. Once the solution is mixed, let it sit from between a few hours to overnight. We let our solution set for about 4 hours for this batch. This allows the sediment time to settle on the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket and the liquid to rise to the top. Then we slowly poured the liquid into a cooking pot and placed the remaining sediment into an old t-shirt. Be sure to have your gloves on for this step. We then squeezed the remaining liquid from the tshirt into the pan and brought the liquid to a boil on the stove. Once the liquid comes to a boil, take it off of the heat and let it sit again so that the sediment can settle. Once it has settled, the remaining solution should look like the picture below and to the right. Its a color very similar to apple juice.
5. Simmer the solution until you see it start to bubble. Once it does, keep it on really low heat and stir with a spoon until it starts to thicken like the picture on the left below. When its all done, you should have a fine powder like the picture on the bottom right.
Another great site to show you how to make it with step by step detail is https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/
WOOD ASH SOAP Wood Ash mixed with water produces lye, which can then be mixed with animal fat to make soap. You simply have to add boiling soft water to your ash, allow it to sit for a few days, and drain the lye out of the mixture. You know that it’s alkaline enough to go forward with the soap-making process when an egg will float in it. Once you’ve extracted the lye, it’s just a matter of cooking it down with rendered animal fat. Softwood ash produces a soft soap and hardwood ash produces a firmer soap. Add salt to make it even firmer. A cord of wood can produce up to 50 pounds of ash so if you burn wood all winter and spring, you’re going to have plenty of ash at your disposal! Taken from
Im always fascinated in learning new things about stoves and I thought Id share this with you……
Soap Making Wood Ash Lye
FAQ
Can soap be made from ash?
Is wood ash soap safe?
Can you use ash instead of soap?
Can you make lye from any ashes?
Can you make homemade soap from ashes?
The stuff we’ll be making from ashes is potassium hydroxide, or potash. To make your own lye for homemade soap from scratch, you’ll need to collect ashes from burnt hardwood. If you’re not familiar with that term, hardwood trees are generally deciduous, with dense wood. Oak, maple, beech, hickory, and ash are the best woods to burn to make soap.
Can you use wood ashes for bar soap?
Ash, hickory, and maple are all great choices for hardwood, but you can also use others. Avoid softwood, like pine; it won’t make good lye for bar soap. You may be able to buy the ashes online instead of burning them yourself. Make sure that they come from hardwood and don’t contain any pieces of black charcoal.
How do you make soap from wood ash?
WOOD ASHING SOAP Wood Ash mixed with waters produces lye, which can then can mingled from animal fat to make soap. You plain have to add boiling soft water to your ash, allow it to sit for adenine few days, and drain the lye out of the mixture.
How is ash soap made?
Ash soap is made from lye derived from hardwood ash. Once you concentrate the lye water, you can turn it into soap by cooking it with fat. Traditional colonial recipes used animal fat, but you can use other types of fat too. Because of the unique type of lye used to make it, ash soap does not produce much lather.