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Making Lye
Soap is a combination of three ingredients: fat, water and lye. In addition to use in soap recipes, lye can be used to clean containers where oil or protein-based deposits have adhered. It is a common ingredient in oven cleaners. Lye can strip paint finishes, but will leave wood grain raised. Because it has the ability to dissolve hair and soap, lye is an effective drain cleaner.
Lye purchased from a store is not the same chemical as lye made from wood ash. Lye made from wood ash is potassium hydroxide. Lye made commercially is sodium hydroxide. These products require different measures for the same application. Read recipes carefully to see which type of lye is used or you could be disappointed with your results.
Homemade lye is best made using ash from hardwoods like maple and oak or by using fruit trees such as apple. Avoid using wood from pine trees or evergreens. The wood must be burned at high temperatures with lots of oxygen so that the wood is completely consumed leaving white, paper thin ash, not chunks of charcoal.
Collect enough hardwood ash to fill a waterproof non-metal bucket to within 3 or 4 inches of its top edge. Ash containers may be large (wooden barrels) or small (5 gallon buckets).
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. This hole should be small enough that it can be stopped with a non-metal object like a small cork, toothpick or dowel.
Layer the bottom of the ash container with river gravel. Top this with a four inch layer of packed hay, grass or straw. Fill the remainder of the bucket with wood ash (stop 3 to 4 inches below the top) and tamp it down firmly.
Collect 5 or more gallons of soft water. Soft water is water with little or no mineral content. 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. The container you will use to catch the runoff can be glass or even an enamel surfaced pan. Lye will react to metal containers and possibly burn holes into them. Find a position for this catch container that is close enough to the ash bucket to prevent unnecessary splashing during drainage.
Lye can be blinding if it touches the eye. 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. This reaction creates salts which can cause severe chemical burns, permanent injury or scarring. Lye burns can be so severe as to cause nerve damage, so you may not feel the burn right away.
Safety precautions should be undertaken before beginning. Don't work in an enclosed area; make sure you have good air exchange. Have contact information for emergency services and poison control on hand. Wear protective clothing. Wear rubber gloves (the big yellow kind), long sleeves, have your legs covered and wear safety goggles. Keep vinegar nearby in order to neutralize any skin burns. Do NOT wash with water following contact with this substance as this will merely exacerbate the corrosive affect.
Use a wooden handle or rod to press a small hole into the packed ash. Heat 1 gallon of soft water to boiling. Cautiously allow the boiling water to flow into the container of ash. The ash and water will spit, spew and bubble. Wait until this simmers down before adding another gallon of soft water. If the level of the ashes sinks, add more ash to the bucket. Add enough soft water to cover the ashes in the bucket. Place a well-fitting lid on the bucket.
Clear the opening at the base of the container so that the liquid can drain into your second vessel. Draining the ash bucket could take as much as 24 hours.
On the second and third day, pour the water that has runoff of the ashes back through again. Your lye will be strengthened by this repetition.
Another option is to leave the container of ash and water sitting. Place the lid on the bucket, leaving it undisturbed for 72 hours. 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 runoff is potassium hydroxide (lye) water. A fresh intact egg placed into your lye can test its strength. 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. An egg that sinks means that the lye solution is too weak and won't work in soap recipes. You'll know your solution is too strong if your egg bobs up on top of the surface. Add more soft water. Don't use the egg for any purpose; dispose of it after this use.
Heating weak lye water will strengthen your solution by reducing the water content. Enamel finished pans are safe for this as long as they are never again utilized in cooking foods. Be careful when heating lye as it can be scorched. You've reached the proper potency when a chicken feather held to the heated lye solution begins dissolving. Take the lye water mixture off of the heat to cool.
Store lye water in jars with plenty of head room to allow for safety in pouring. Store the jars (sealed tightly) in a space that is cool and dark, off-limits to children.
Dispose of the old leached ashes in a hole dug away from high traffic areas. The ashes should be completely cooled before you cover the hole.
If you wish to dry your lye into potash crystals, place the water into a lye-safe container. Glass is a good choice for this application. Left in the sun, uncovered, the water will evaporate and crystals will form. Potash requires the same safety precautions in storage as outlined for the liquid form.
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.
Homework help?
dishwasher detergent, oven cleaner, and drain cleaner are all basic solutions with high ph values. What property of basic solutions makes these products useful?
Thanks for help=)
Enzymes used in detergents are protein catalysts that consist of long chains of amino acids. They are similar to protein catalysts present in all living cells where they control metabolic processes, convert food nutrients to simple molecules, convert these molecules to energy and to new cell material. As catalysts; enzymes speed up specific chemical reactions, in mild conditions of temperature and pH, without being altered or consumed in the process. Consequently, small quantities of enzyme can repeatedly catalyze the break down of millions of molecules in minutes. Enzymes function optimally in detergents at temperatures of 20 - 60C and within a pH range of pH 7.5 - 10.5.
The performance of enzymes in detergents depends on number of factors, including the detergent’s composition, type of stains to be removed, wash temperature, washing procedure and wash-water hardness. To help formulators optimize enzymatic detergent washing efficiency, Specialty Enzymes provides wash laboratory technical services. In our wash laboratory, customer, base detergents are evaluated on standard soils in both a model wash system (Terg-O-Tometer) and in full-scale household washing machines.
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