English: How to make lye soap:

Over the past several years, there has been a renewed interest in the art of soap making. This form of art has been around for centuries.

Long ago, soap making was not considered an art form, but a necessity. Our ancestors usually made soap in the fall after the fall butchering, when they had plenty of fat from their hogs. They cooked the fat down to make lard. To the lard, they added lye, which was made from wood ash.

They then cooked this concoction outside in a large kettle over a fire until it began to harden. The whole process took a several days, but was necessary for the cleanliness of the family until the next soap-making day, which was usually a whole year away.

This soap was not just used to keep hands clean...it was used for everything. People used the lye soap to wash their dishes, clothes, floors, windows, and even their babies. The soap is surprisingly was not as harsh as some people believe today.

Getting Started
There are several things you need to know before you begin your soap making experience.
• Lye, which you can make yourself either from wood ash, or purchase at a grocery store, is very irritating to the skin and can do severe damage to eyes and throats. Use extreme caution when using lye, always keeping it away from children. You should use rubber gloves and safety glasses when using lye. Follow the directions on the back of the lye box on how to handle lye. Red Devil is a popular brand of lye.
• You can also make your own lye by pouring water over wood ashes and saving the byproduct--lye water. The lye water is then added to fat to make soap.
• Although lard is the main ingredient in soap, one can substitute other oils to use in its place. Some possible substitutions for lard can be sunflower, canola, or just vegetable oil. (Though you will find that soap made from oil is greasier than that made of lard.) Lard can be purchased at a grocery store or a butcher shop.
• The utensils you use in soap making should be saved for soap making use only and should not be use thereafter for any food purposes. This goes for the kettle you cook the soap in too.
• You must not use metal pans and utensils, like aluminum, iron, tin, or Teflon for soap making. You can use cast iron (as in a kettle, if you are making it outside over a fire) or enamelware, stoneware, wood, glass or plastic.
• Always add lye to cold water. Not vise-versa. Remember to stir slowly to avoid splashes.
• The water will start heating up once the lye is added, due to a chemical reaction. Afterwards, pour the lye solution into the fat, once again stirring slowly.
• Chunks in your bar soap is caused by the separation of the lye and the lard. The chunks are the fat. If this happens, melt the mixture and add a cup of water at a time, until the mixture is thick and syrupy again.
• You can make your own soap molds out of a rag-lined box or glass cake pans or casseroles. Simply slice the bars with a knife after the soap has cured for a week.

Soap Recipes
I know the trend right now is to add wonderful smelling scents and beautiful tints to homemade soaps. But both the scents and the colors will fade after a very short time, and it isn't worth the extra expense and or effort. You are supposed to use essential oils when adding scent to your soap, but you will not tell a difference between it and any other scent.

Boiled Soap #1 For cooking outdoors in a kettle.
32 pounds lard; 16 quarts soft water; Eight cans lye
Boil 2 hours and then add 1 more gallon of water. Stir and remove fire from kettle and pour into molds.

Boiled Soap #2
2 gallons of soft water; One can lye; 5 pounds lard
Heat the fat. In a separate container, add lye to water. Add the lye water to the fat and cook for 2 hours.

Cold Soap # 1
Six lbs. melted fat; One can lye; 2 1/2 pints water
Add lye to water and dissolve. When container, which holds the lye water, is warm, add the fat and stir until cool. Pour into a cloth lined box, or a box that has been dipped in cold water, and cover. Cut soap into squares when set.

Cold Soap #2
1-cup fat; 1/2 cup cold water; 1 1/2 T. lye; 1 Tablespoon powdered borax (optional); 1 Tablespoon ammonia (optional)
Melt fat. In a separate container, add borax and ammonia to lye. Add lye (with the borax and ammonia in it) to water. Then, add the lye solution to the fat. Beat with an eggbeater for 20 minutes.

Cold Soap #3
One can lye; 2 1/2 pints of cold water; 5 1/2 pounds lard
Dissolve lye in water and set aside until temperature is less than 80 degrees. Melt the fat and set aside until temperature is 115 degrees. Very slowly, pour dissolved lye into fat. Stir until it thickens, and pour into mold.

Laundry Soap
11 cups water; 1-cup borax (found at the grocery store in the detergent aisle); 1-cup bleach
Nine cups melted fat (around 95 degrees); 1- 13 oz. can lye
Using an 8-quart or larger pan, add water. Then very slowly add the lye to the water. Stir constantly until the lye is dissolved. Slowly pour the lye water into the fat. Stir and add the bleach, borax, and any scent if you so desire. Stir. Every half hour, stir the mixture. It will soon resemble cottage cheese. You can break up chunks with a potato masher. Leave overnight, and for the next several days, stir occasionally to dry the soap out. When almost dry, pour into a plastic-lined box and leave until completely dry (about 2 days.) To use, blend one cup of soap in the blender to a fine consistency. Keep in mind that this soap is low sudsing. The harder the water you have, the fewer suds you will have. Softening your water will produce more suds.

Other Uses for Lye
If at all lye has an opponent in the cooking, cleaning and other departments, baking soda is a noteworthy contender. Unlike sodium hydroxide (lye), baking soda or sodium bicarbonate is not toxic or hazardous and is often used as a substitute for lye water. Though baking soda is hailed supreme for its use in a wide variety of situations, it too has its own drawbacks. This article will throw light on the uses, dangers and limitations of using lye and baking soda by drawing a comparison chart between the two.

Lye versus Baking Soda: Let’s start with lye. As we all know, lye or caustic soda is the strongest alkaline with a pH of about 13  to 14. Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate is a light alkaline with a pH of 8 to 9. Owing to its strong nature, lye is used in a variety of applications – industrial, domestic, cooking and others. On the other hand, baking soda’s slight alkaline properties finds usage in more of domestic and medicinal situations.

For Cooking:
When it comes to cooking, baking soda seems to rule the roost. This is because of its alkaline properties and its ability for “leavening” a food item. When it reacts with other components to release carbon dioxide, it makes dough ‘rise’. It can be used as a substitute for baking powder if sufficient acid reagent is added to the recipe. It is used to make food more digestible, to remove smell from certain food stuff (from fish) and to reduce acid content of recipes. Since it is non-toxic, it can be handled without worries and mixed with water to form baking soda solution. Lye, on the other hand, is stronger than baking soda in its alkaline properties. Due to this, it is tougher on food stuff and hence used only sparingly. It plays the role of a good preservative, good cure and an agent to soften hard-kernel foods like corn. Lye water is used in the making of pretzels, bagels and hominy corn. It is used in curing green olives. It is an important ingredient and preservative in Asian cooking and even added to Chinese dumplings, noodles etc.

For  Cleaning:
Lye is outstanding when it comes to cleaning. If you have to clean the hardest of stains, you cannot but choose lye. Forget about cleaning stains or fabrics, what about cleaning toilets, drains and other tough or dirty surfaces? Lye rules it all. Lye is commonly used as an effective drain opener, pool cleaner, domestic cleaner, detergent and tough fabric cleaner. Baking soda is a mild cleaner compared to lye. It is used to remove odors, scrub sinks, plastic or porcelain tubs, clean heavy-stain dishes, remove grease from pans, and even clean shoes, carpets, stainless steel and chrome. Baking soda  scores over lye in the fact that it can be used without protective gear, gloves or goggles.

And  Other uses:
Lye is used in a variety of industrial applications like – production of petroleum products, making of biodiesel, food processing and the most important of all, soap making. Lye is an essential ingredient in soap making so much so that it is said that all soap is lye soap. Though a caustic chemical, lye soaps (made with mixing lye with oil or fat) are some of the softest soaps in the world. They clean well, lather better and are tender on the skin. Lye soaps are used even to treat skin diseases like psoriasis, poison ivy, eczema and other allergies. They are said to improve a hunter’s luck on account of their neutral smell and cleansing factor. Lye is also used in the making of biodiesel. It is lye which dissolves the fatty acids and separates the glycerin out of the mixture. Another new application is in funerals. Yes, it has been discovered that lye can be used in the disposal of corpses without affecting the environment.

Baking soda’s uses are more medicinal than industrial. Sodium bicarbonate is an effective antacid used in times of indigestion or bowel disorders. It can be used to slow down renal dysfunction and can be effective as a wet or dry deodorant. It is also a disinfectant and antiseptic with fungicidal properties. Add to this its ability to treat aspirin overdoses or renal stones, baking soda comes out as an instant in-house remedy for a variety of ailments. However, it has been discovered that too much intake of baking soda can cause stomach ruptures. In the case of lye, there is no question of intake as the chemical has the potential to corrode everything it comes in contact with.

More to come later - Bird  ...

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