I was at Sturbridge Village last weekend (detecting a theme?) and there happened to be two costumed interpreters making soap, the old way. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the ashes from all those wood fires were saved for making soap. I had a vague idea of the process, but took the opportunity to quiz them. Here is my understanding of the basic process in ten steps (if anyone knows better, please share). As I write this, I wish I’d had a recorder…
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Lye, the corrosive alkaline substance in soap (NaOH), is what lets soap do its job. In 1840, you obtained lye from all those ashes.
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1) Fill your wooden barrel with ashes. This barrel should have holes in the bottom.
2) Set it on your collecting stone (note the grooves in the stone beneath the barrel) and fill it with soft water (rain/stream water) but not so much that the water starts to flow. Leave it there for at least a day.
3) Start adding more water. Slowly. This will leach the lye from the ashes. Collect it by placing a bucket beneath the stone’s spout. Do not touch. Remember, its corrosive. My son reached out and the interpreter jumped to stop him.
4) An egg should float – straight up and down. If it floats like a boat, you need to add more water. If it doesn’t float at all, its too dilute and you need to boil the lye water to concentrate it.
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Meanwhile, you should be preparing your lard (animal fat).
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5) Melt your lard.
6) Heat up your lye water.
7) Mix the two together. I looked online and it looks like a ratio of 2 gallons of lye water mixed with 3 cups of melted lard is the goal.
8. Then you ‘prove’ the soap. This involves fine-tuning the ratio by looking to see how the soap falls when lifted with a knife. It shouldn’t be too long and ropy (needs more lye), nor should it fall in short, white pieces (needs more lard).
9) When the ratio is right, you have soft or liquid soap. If you want a bar of soap, there’s more to do (see step #10).
10) Add salt. This causes the soap to float to the top and a brown liquid to stay on the bottom. You skim off the soap. Once you’ve collected enough (you may have to re-melt it), you pour it into wooden molds and let it cool. Later, you can cut it into bars.
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If you want more details there’s a website called Traditional Soap Making that I consulted. I’d love to try this someday. Just once. I’m sure after one run through I’d be completely content to continue to buy my soap at the store.
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