Posted: 11/24/2007 6:40:31 AM EDT
|
In the quest to add some new skills and do something with the constant supply of milk from our magic goat, (we've done cheese) we are going to try making goat soap... We've googled and found some different pointers from the internets, and are going to try a method using a lye product from lowes... Any "more basic" instructions? TIA, h |
|
I am new to soap making and just made my third batch yesterday. Here is the site I use it has alot of good info, and links for ratios and stuff.... so far coloring and scenting is the hardest part. good luck and keep us updated on your progress. |
|
Make sure you are getting lye, and not something that looks like or is packaged like lye. There are some products that, while they contain lye, they have a lot of other crap in them that may be great for unplugging your sink, but may ruin a batch of soap. I have a few bars of soap that my grandpa made about 40 years ago. He just used hamburger grease, lye, and water. (he had a hamburger joint in town) If you see a recipe that is mostly olive oil try that one, I made some once and it was pretty good stuff. Don't have a clue where my recipes are now. |
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/brockway84.html |
|
In making soap the first ingredient required was a liquid solution of potash commonly called lye. The lye solution was obtained by placing wood ashes in a bottomless barrel set on a stone slab with a groove and a lip carved in it. The stone in turn rested on a pile of rocks. To prevent the ashes from getting in the solution a layer of straw and small sticks was placed in the barrel then the ashes were put on top. The lye was produced by slowly pouring water over the ashes until a brownish liquid oozed out the bottom of the barrel. This solution of potash lye was collected by allowing it to flow into the groove around the stone slab and drip down into a clay vessel at the lip of the groove. Some colonists used an ash hopper for the making of lye instead of the barrel method. The ash hopper, was kept in a shed to protect the ashes from being leached unintentionally by a rain fall. Ashes were added periodically and water was poured over at intervals to insure a continuous supply of lye. The lye dripped into a collecting vessel located beneath the hopper. The hardest part was in determining if the lye was of the correct strength, as we have said. In order to learn this, the soap maker floated either a potato or an egg in the lye. If the object floated with a specified amount of its surface above the lye solution, the lye was declared fit for soap making. Most of the colonists felt that lye of the correct strength would float a potato or an egg with an area the size of a ninepence (about the size of a modern quarter) above the surface. To make a weak lye stronger, the solution could either be boiled down more or the lye solution could be poured through a new batch of ashes. To make a solution weaker, water was added. GOOD INFO HERE!! |
|
Lots of good info here. Just remember, work in a well-ventilated area. Wear safety goggles. Wear a mask to keep little bits of crap from flipping up into your nose and mouth when you're mixing. Wear solid rubber gloves, like you would wear cleaning an oven. Making soap is pretty safe (we did it in elementary school), but it only takes a drop of lye in your eye to ruin the whole day. |
|
lye product from lowes" Red devil lye is about the only "true" lye left out there and it's hard to find now cause the base head, crackheads or meth heads use it to make dope, one of the three, I'm not up on the drug culture. The other thing that always screws me up with soap is that it's pretty much an EXACT science. I'm more of the "let's try this and see what happens" kinda guy and that doesn't bode well with soapmaking. I've never got the lye from wood ash thing to work, even strictly following directions. It's a good skill to know, and I definitely am gonna keep practicing here now and then, but we keep 300 or so bars of soap in our stocks because we KNOW how much of a PITA it is to make the stuff. There's going to be enough to do. That and the fact that we don't keep any really "fatty" animals like pigs, cows, etc. There's only so much fat on a rabbit or chicken. We don't grow any oil crops either- not enough land. If your storing good quantities of cooking oil, this would be a good way to help you rotate it every 18 months or so.... Lowdown3 |
|
Thanks for all the good pointers! The bit on producing lye is one that I wanted. This is really an exercise in DIY, a) 'cause we have this magic goat B) My wife won't mind when I bring home 5 gross boxes of bar soap after making it. ;) Adn to learn how. The stuff we found at lowes was mentioned on another soapmaking site as being the only commonly available product that still had lye in it. (I was pinging this forum for the lyemaking part, which is a fair bit of work). My wife doesn't 100% understand what I'm preparing for, but more tolerates it. She does however, like to learn new skills and make things, so this is the natural extension of it.  Thanks again! |