Posted by admin | Posted in archery | Posted on 28-02-2011
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Making Your Own Lye
Soap is a combination of three ingredients: fat, water and lye. 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. A powerful wood-stripper, lye will often leave the grain of wood raised. Lye solutions have long been used as drain cleaning agents because they decompose soap and hair.
Lye purchased from a store is not the same chemical as lye made from wood ash. Potassium hydroxide is the lye produced from wood ash. Lye made commercially is sodium hydroxide. These two different chemicals cannot be substituted in equal measure. The amount of lye you use in a recipe varies based on which product you are using.
Homemade lye is best made using ash from hardwoods like maple and oak or by using fruit trees such as apple. 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 runoff of lye water will be held in one container while the other will be filled with ashes. 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. On top of this, place about 4 inches of packed straw, hay or grass. Fill the remainder of the bucket with wood ash (stop 3 to 4 inches below the top) and tamp it down firmly.
You will want 5 gallons (or more) of soft water. Having only trace amounts of minerals classifies water as soft. Sources of soft water include water that is specially filtered, from sandstone, peat or lava rock (granite, for example). You could also use distilled water. However, the simplest way to acquire soft water is by collecting rainwater.
Secure your ash bucket in a place where it won't be knocked over accidentally. Enamel finished pans or glass containers can be used to catch the liquid drained from the ash bucket. Metal containers will react to the lye which could eat holes in the container. Position the runoff container so that splashing is minimal.
Lye can cause a loss of sight. Swallowing lye can lead to death. Potassium hydroxide is a caustic substance that reacts to fats and oil on the skin, causing burns on nearly any surface. The chemical action of lye with fats and oils creates salts which can result in severe burns, permanent injury and scars. Lye burns can be so severe as to cause nerve damage, so you may not feel the burn right away.
It is necessary to take safety precautions before you begin the process. Work in a well ventilated area. Have contact information for emergency services and poison control on hand. Dress appropriately. 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. Water will make lye burns worse, so don't use it to wash skin touched by lye.
Use a broom handle or dowel to create an indentation in the packed ashes. Heat 1 gallon of soft water to boiling. Carefully pour this into the ash bucket. The ash and water will spit, spew and bubble. When this action calms, slowly add another gallon of water to the ash bucket. You may need to add more ash to the bucket as the level of ash settles. Add enough soft water to cover the ashes in the bucket. Place a lid over the top of the ash container.
Remove the stopper from the hole at the bottom of the ash bucket and allow the runoff to drip into your catch container. A full day may be required for this.
Take the runoff from your ash bucket and pour it through again on day two and day three. Your lye will be strengthened by this repetition.
Another option is to leave the container of ash and water sitting. Cover the container and allow the water to sit for about 3 days. You don't want the bucket to be spilled accidentally so choose a storage location carefully. Drain the ash container when three days have passed.
The drained liquid is lye water also known as potassium hydroxide. To check the potency, place a newly laid egg that is still in its shell into the liquid. If your lye solution is the right potency, the egg will float exposing a nickel or quarter sized portion of its shell above the surface. This equals an area of 2 to 2 1/2 centimeters in 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. Be sure to dispose of the egg after use.
If the lye water is too weak, heat it to reduce the amount of liquid. 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. The solution is strong enough when a chicken feather touched to the heating lye starts to dissolve. 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.
Dig a hole in an out of the way area to dispose of the spent ashes. Allow this to cool thoroughly before re-filling the hole.
To make potash crystals, place the lye water in a safe container. Glass jars work well for this use. Leave the container uncovered in the sun until the water evaporates. Just as you would with lye water, follow safety precautions when storing potash crystals.
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.
Bubba & his Father, Charlie Feathers of Sun Studios fame