SOAP MAKING - Part 1

The information below is a basic set of instructions for making cold-processed soap from Chapter 20 (titled “Preventive Medicine”) of US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook (an excellent ready reference and review book written for Special Forces medics). The bracketed notes [ ] contain important details on this subject from other sources. In order to successfully make soap, the ratios of the fat (in the form of animal fat), lye, and water are to be kept as is. If you cut back, do so by keeping the ingredients in proportion to each other, i.e. keeping the same ratios. Almost any fat or oil can be used (according to Walton Feed Inc.’s web page on making soap), but the lye ratio changes with the type of fat (animal or plant) used in the soap making. This chemical process is complex, yet easy when following set ratios and set directions. Those of you who are bakers can especially understand why it’s important to keep ratios in mind when you want a successful end result. The web pages given as sources here are excellent places to go for more information regarding soap making. Also, if you are truly interested, there are numerous other web pages and books on this topic. --

1. Method one: Two #10 cans of animal fat, two #10 cans of water, and one #10 can of lye. [Note: One #10 can contains 12-13 cups; therefore, this is a total of 24-26 cups, according to Everything 2 website.]

2. Method two: Two #10 cans of animal fat and two #10 cans of water poured through wood ashes.

3. Optional ingredients: One-half cup borax, one-half cup liquid washing ammonia, and two tablespoons of granulated sugar. [See “*Optional ingredients” section after step 3 of Section B.]

1. Cut the fat into small strips and place in a pot to melt at moderate heat. [See “ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR SUCCESSFUL SOAP MAKING” below regarding “FAT”.]

2. Slowly add the lye [CAREFUL: LYE IS CAUSTIC! “Contact with lye can cause injury, as can ingestion or exposure to fumes.”] and water (or the water that has been poured through the wood ashes) to the melted fat and stir until the mixture is about the consistency of honey. The optional items may be added during this procedure.

[Note: See “ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR SUCCESSFUL SOAP MAKING” below regarding “LYE”, both in regard to the canned lye and the lye made from wood ashes. There are differences in the strength of ash lye, and one must have the correct (known and dependable) strength in order to be successful with soap making. Tests for gauging the correct strength of lye can be found in the ADDITIONAL NOTES section below. Lye made from wood ashes makes a soft, liquid soap and not a hard soap, according to “Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques”. The soap mixture, after cooling to the next day, is a brown jelly like substance which cleans when ladled out. To solidify the soap, add salt during this step 2 in section B (along with any other optional ingredients); this is something that some of the colonial Americans did and some modern home soap makers still do. If using canned lye to make soap, Walton Feed Inc. suggests adding the optional ingredients to the water before carefully adding the canned lye to the water (under the “Final Soap Making Tips” section). This author also advices the following: “Dissolve [canned] lye in cold water. Having half your water as ice would be so much the better. Never pour the water into the lye. Doing this could cause the mixture to explode and blow very corrosive lye water and crystals all over the place. Rather, always pour the lye into the water. ... As you mix it, a physical reaction takes place between the lye and the water generating a lot of heat.” Also to be considered is the temperature of the lye and fat when combining them: “Before using, the lye water must now cool down to about 85 degrees F (or room temperature if your mixing area's above 85 degrees) before adding it to the fat. ... The temperature of the fat is important. It needs to be a bit above its melting point. This is 130 degrees F for beef tallow, or 85 degrees F for pork lard, or about the same temperature for vegetable oil. ... With stirring only, it can take a long time to get your soap to the trace stage [when soap has thickened up somewhat and is “much like the thickness of pudding after it's cooked but before it has set up”] depending on many variables. One of these variables is the heavyness of the fat. The lighter the fat or oil, the longer it will take it to trace. You can expect a wait anywhere from 30-60 minutes for animal fats to several hours or even days for the vegetable oils.” Note: If using vegetable oil to make soap, be sure to read the directions on Walton Feed Inc. since it requires a different ratio of lye to the oil (fat) than that made with animal fat.]

3. Pour the thickened mix into a container to cool. After standing a few hours, the soap may then be cut into the desired sizes. This soap is excellent for both laundry and hands.

[Walton Feed Inc. says that when animal fats are used in the making of soap, that beef tallow makes the hardest soap, “pork lard a medium hardness soap and chicken fat the softest. It's generally accepted that the harder fats make better soap.” From their page “Soap Cooking In A Modern Setting” tells how to section the soap into bars: “Soap made from Animal Fat: After a couple of hours, section it into bar sized squares with a table knife. Depending on how firm it is, on the second day, you can remove it from the tray and break it into bar sized pieces using the knife marks you put into it [or use a wire to cut it]. After two more days it should be mostly cured. After it has dried it's ready for storage.” According to a Peace Corps website on soap making, they caution using “green soap – “"Green" Soap: Soap that has hardened (2-3 days or so) but not yet cured is still very caustic. Exercise the same care when handling it as you would with pure lye.” Curing takes 2 weeks. After curing the soap, do not use the soap if it burns when lathered. According to some soap making professionals, says Walton Feed Inc., you don’t have to get bubbles [lather] from the soap for it to be able to clean [for example, soap made from lard]. They also brought out that with lye-heavy soaps not much comes off of the bars initially, but after being used a few times they are much easier to use.]

Regarding the above mentioned “optional ingredients”, Walton Feed Inc.’s page on “Soap making - General Instructions” gives the following information under the “Final Soap Making Tips” section:

1) Borax – “Borax is an emulsifying agent that helps a mixed batch of impure oils to get together closely enough to saponify [to convert an alkali (in this case lye) and fat into soap] readily. When the soap is used the borax acts as a water softener.”

2) Ammonia (liquid washing) – “Ammonia is an emulsifying agent that helps a mixed batch of impure oils to get together closely enough to saponify readily. As the soap cures the ammonia evaporates, leaving your bar ammonia free.”

3) Sugar -- “Sugar can be used in soap recipes for making clear soap. It won't dissolve if you try to add it after the lye or fats have been mixed in. Don't add sugar if you plan on cooking your soap.”

[Note: The basic instructions from the Special Forces Handbook (listed above as Sections “A. Ingredients” & “B. Technique”) do not include cooking, i.e. placing the lye water and animal fat over a fire to speed the soap-making process. Caution: Cooking soap (called hot-processed) at home or in camp is very dangerous and should not be done unless you are very sure of what you’re doing and you are using proper safety equipment. For further safety tips, see “Soap Cooking In A Modern Setting”.]

Walton Feed Inc.’s page “Soap making - General Instructions” (http://waltonfeed.com/old/soap/soap.html) web page gives several pages of excellent, helpful tips regarding this important skill. They bring out tips on how to avoid the dangers of using lye. They recommend not using aluminum cookware and utensils (spoons) to make soap since “lye will eat up [corrode] aluminum in a hurry.” Also, do not use tin or zinc for the same reason. Lye can be purchased (if available) in the grocery store’s cleaning section. It is called Red Devil Lye and is used for drain opening. Lye can also be made from wood ashes.

On a Peace Corps “Making Soap” page, the following suggestions are given for making lye: “Fill a bucket with fresh wood ashes. For best results use recently burned wood, charcoal ashes do not work very well. Submerge the ashes in boiling water and allow one to two days mixing every few hours. The water will take the sodium hydroxide from the ashes. When the lye is of adequate strength for soap making, a raw egg [in the shell or a potato about the size of a modern quarter] will float in the solution.”

The author of “Traditional Soap Making” (a detailed web page with many diagrams) gave the following info under “Lye Water Strength”: “If an egg or potato will float just below half way, or a chicken feather starts to dissolve in it, then the lye water is at the right strength. If the egg will not float, then the lye water could be boiled down if you wanted it to be stronger. If the egg seems to pop up too far, add a little bit of soft water (a cup at a time) stirring the lye water, until the egg floats so that its head pops up.” Marietta Ellis, in “Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques”, suggests this process for strengthening lye: “To make a weak lye stronger, the solution [can] either be boiled down more or the lye solution [can] be poured through a new batch of ashes.”

The Peace Corps “Making Soap” page continues: “Pour off the lye. If a large batch is made the water can be boiled off and a white power will remain. Store this in dry place and then add water until appropriate strength is obtained when it is time to make soap. Add dried lye to water, not water to dried lye. *SAFETY NOTE* Lye is a harsh chemical. Strong Lye can cause chemical burns. If lye comes in contact with the skin toughly wash hands with water to remove it. Heat is generated when dried lye is added to water. Avoid mixing powdered lye and water in plastic containers.”

DRAWINGS BY ARTHUR ELLIS

To insure a continuous supply of lye, the colonial Americans used the following method (which will come in handy in the future when shopping for supplies is no longer done because of civil war and the break-up of America. See New Nations - Civil War II, CIVIL WAR TWO - The Coming Breakup of America, and http://www.threeworldwars.com/.) -- “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.” -- From “Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques” by Marietta Ellis, with her husband Arthur Ellis supplying the above 2 drawings.

The author of “Traditional Soap Making” (the source of the previous 4 graphics) suggested making lye water this way: “If you are going to use a large barrel or drum to make the lye water in, and it has a tap or hole at the right, place some kind of filter on the inside of the barrel around the opening (as shown in the diagrams). Fill the barrel with white ashes to about four inches (10 cm or O.1 meter) below the top. Boil half (1/2) a bucket full of soft water (about 10 pints or six liters [from a spring or rain water]), and pour over the ashes. Slowly add more cold soft water until liquid drips out of the barrel. Close the tap or block the hole. Add more ashes to top the barrel up again, and more soft water. Do not add so much water that the ashes swim. Leave to stand for four or more hours (or over night if you have the time). Later pour the brownish lye water into a plastic or other "safe" container(s). Then pour back through the ashes again. Let the lye water drip into "safe" containers. When the brown lye water stops coming out of the barrel, or ash container, then pour four to five pints (2½ to three liters) of soft water through the ashes, collecting the lye which comes out in a separate "safe" container (as this lye may be weaker than the first lot). Repeat this using two to three pints (one to two liters) of soft water, until no more brown liquid comes out of the ashes. Either put the lye into "safe" bottles, or cover the "safe" containers which it is in. Dig the ashes into the vegetable garden.”

Walton Feed Inc. directs the reader to a page on how to melt and remove impurities in the fat (i.e., render -- http://waltonfeed.com/old/soap/soaprend.html) fresh, raw animal fat, and they include a warning that fat can catch fire. They also say, “Whatever type of fat or oil you use [to make soap, and according to them almost any fat or oil can be used], you must ensure it is clean and free of impurities. It shouldn't be rancid, have excess salt in it, or have any solid particles. [It will be “nasty smelling stuff”, otherwise, when finished. “The soap made from rancid fats or grease would work just as well as soap made from sweet and clean fats but not be as pleasant to have around and use.”] ... Rancid and dirty fat can be cleaned by boiling it for a few minutes in a large pot with four parts water to one part fat. [Fresh fat can be cleaned this way, but it will take longer. Rendering of fresh fat removes all meat tissues that still remain in the fat sections. Note that cleaning of fat in this way creates a strong smell.] Set it aside and let it cool. After it has solidified, remove the fat from the pot in one piece. One way to do this is to run hot water around the outside of the pot, melting a thin layer of fat next to the pan. It should then slide out. Scrape all the foreign matter off the bottom of the fat. If it is still dirty, repeat the cleaning process again.”

OTHER PARTS IN THIS SERIES ON “SOAP MAKING: A BASIC SURVIVAL SKILL” -- LINKS TO PART 2 & PART 3 COMING SOON!

Part 3: SOAP MAKING BY THE CELTS & OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE WHITE RACE FROM THE SEMITES TO THE CELTS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

AMERICAN REFORMATION MINISTRIES / KELTIC KLAN KIRK

MRS. SUSAN JOHNSON

P.O. BOX 1166 MALVERN, ARKANSAS 72104