Lye From Wood Ash

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Making lye from wood ashLye made from wood ash is potassium hydroxide, not sodium hydroxide -- there's 10 timesas much potassium as sodium in wood ash.

The process makes lye water. If you boiled off all the water you could use it as the catalystto make biodiesel, but you'd need more accurate pH measures than those listed below. Theusual pH meter or litmus papers would do. See also Natural test papers.

If you try this, we'd be very interested to know the results -- please contact us.

Making the lye

Drill a lot of holes in the bottom of a small wooden barrel, make sure it's waterproof beforeyou drill the holes!

Stand the barrel on blocks leaving space beneath the barrel for a container. Use a waterproofwood or glass container. Lye can burn through some metals.

Put a layer of gravel in the bottom of the barrel over the holes, then put a layer of straw overthe gravel. Fill the rest of the barrel with hardwood ash (NOTE: hardwood -- NOTsoftwood), leaving a couple of inches at the top clear. Then pour rainwater into the barrel.After a long time the water in the barrel will start to drip into the container. Leave it until itstops, then replace the container with another in case of odd drips.

Use an old iron pot, or a steel pan (One you will not be using for anything else!). Boil theliquid until it is so concentrated that a fresh egg (still in it's shell please!) will float on top.Then destroy the egg. Remember to take all precautions not the let the liquid touch your skinor clothing.

To test the strength of the lye you need a saturated solution of salt. Dissolve chemical-freesalt in a pint of water until no more salt will dissolve. Take a stick and put a small weight onthe end of it and float it in a pint of the salty water. The weight will sink to the bottom, whilethe top of the stick will float. Make a mark on the stick where it reaches the water line. Thenfloat the stick and weight in a pint of lye. The mark on the stick will probably be above thewater mark of the lye. If so, stir in some more rainwater until the mark on the stick is inexactly the same place it was in the salt water. You now have the correct distillation of lyefor making soap.

Making "Lye Water"

Soap making uses a caustic solution known as "Lye Water".

When available, Caustic Soda is used. Here we will make Lye Water out of certain woodashes and "soft water".

1) White Ashes

Dried palm branches, dried out banana peels, cocoa pods, kapok tree wood, oak wood, (orfor really white soap, apple tree wood) make the best lye ashes. Ordinary wood used incooking fires will do.

Lye from wood ash: Journey to Forever file:///Users/saumitre/other/read/house/soap/lye-from-ash-.html

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Whatever wood is used, it should be burned in a very hot fire to make very white ashes.

When cold, these are stored in a covered plastic bucket or wooden barrel, or stainless steelcontainer. If these are not available, a clay pot-jar which has been fired in a pottery makingkiln (not just dried in the sun).

A wooden drum or barrel which has a tap at the right is best.

2) Soft Water

Water from a spring or from showers of rain is called "soft water", because it does not havemetallic or acidic chemicals in it.

This makes it useful for soap making, as there are no other chemicals in it which would getin the way of making soap.

"Ordinary" bore, well, or river water can be used for making soap, but this will sometimesneed to have a "washing soda" or "baking soda" added to it. Otherwise some of thechemicals in the water will get in the way of making the soap.

If you are using "ordinary" water and you want to test it to see if some soda needs to beadded, simply try to make soap bubble up (foam) in it.

If the soap easily foams up, the water is probably ok as it is.

If not, try adding a little bit of soda at a time stirring it to make it disappear, until the waterwill foam the soap up.

Then add the same amount of soda to the same amounts of the water that you wish to use tomake the soap. For example, if you were testing a 1/4 (a quarter) of a bucket of water, andyou ended up needing 1/8 (an eighth) of a cup of soda, then you would need 4/8 ( or1/2-half) a cup of soda for a full bucket of "ordinary" water.

However you have got it, store the "soft water" in covered wooden, plastic, or stainless steelbuckets or containers. (Again, a clay-jar as described above can be used if needed.)

"Safe" Containers

Any of the types of containers, buckets, barrels or jars described in the White Ashes or SoftWater sections are called "safe containers".

Making "Lye Water"

If you are going to use a large barrel or drum to make the lye water in, and it has a tap orhole at the right, place some kind of filter on the inside of the barrel around the opening.

Fill the barrel with white ashes to about four inches (10 cm or 0.1 metre) below the top.

Boil half (1/2) a bucket full of soft water (about 10 pints or six litres), and pour over theashes.

Slowly add more cold soft water until liquid drips out of the barrel. Close the tap or blockthe hole.


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Add more ashes to top the barrel up again, and more soft water. Do not add so much waterthat the ashes swim.

Leave to stand for four or more hours (or overnight if you have the time). Later pour thebrownish lye water into a plastic or other "safe" container(s). Then pour back through theashes 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 tofive pints (2-1/2 to three litre) of soft water through the ashes, collecting the lye whichcomes 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 litres) of soft water, until no more brownliquid comes out of the ashes.

Either put the lye into "safe" bottles, or cover the "safe" containers which it is in. Dig theashes into the vegetable garden.

Lye Water Strength

If an egg or potato will float just below halfway, 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 want it to bestronger.

If the egg seems to pop up too far, add a little bit of soft water (a cup at a time) stirring thelye water, until the egg floats so that its head pops up.

Make The Lye

From Soap Making - Traditional Methods: Lye Rain Water Wood Ash by Paul Norman

In making soap the first ingredient required was a liquid solution of potash commonly calledlye.

The lye solution was obtained by placing wood ashes in a bottomlessbarrel set on a stone slab with a groove and a lip carved in it. Thestone in turn rested on a pile of rocks. To prevent the ashes fromgetting in the solution a layer of straw and small sticks was placed inthe barrel then the ashes were put on top. The lye was produced byslowly pouring water over the ashes until a brownish liquid oozed outthe bottom of the barrel. This solution of potash lye was collected byallowing it to flow into the groove around the stone slab and dripdown into a clay vessel at the lip of the groove.

Some colonists used an ash hopper for the making of lye instead of thebarrel method. The ash hopper, was kept in a shed to protect the ashesfrom being leached unintentionally by a rain fall. Ashes were addedperiodically and water was poured over at intervals to insure acontinuous supply of lye. The lye dripped into a collecting vessellocated beneath the hopper.


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The hardest part was in determining if the lye was of the correct strength, as we have said. Inorder to learn this, the soap maker floated either a potato or an egg in the lye. If the objectfloated with a specified amount of its surface above the lye solution, the lye was declared fitfor soap making. Most of the colonists felt that lye of the correct strength would float apotato 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 downmore or the lye solution could be poured through a new batch of ashes. To make a solutionweaker, water was added.

From Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques -- The Soap Factoryhttp://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html

"When a fresh egg floats with a nickel-sized to quarter-sized area above the surface, theliquor is ready for soap making." -- Homestead mailing list.Nickel = 2 cm diameterQuarter = 2.5 cm diameter

At the turn of the last century lye was obtained by leaching water through wood ashes. Atbest, the concentration of potassium hydroxide in the resulting lye water was alwaysquestionable. My grandmother said that she could tell if the lye water was the right strengthby using the wing feather pulled from her favorite goose. She would pour the lye water intoa 30 gallon cooking pot and heat the solution. Next she would touch the feather to theheating lye. If the feather dissolved, the lye was strong enough to dissolve pig fat.-- Soap Making Today

Biofuels at Journey to ForeverBiofuelEn espaol -- Biocombustibles, biodieselBiofuels LibraryBiofuels supplies and suppliers

BiodieselMake your own biodieselMike Pelly's recipeTwo-stage biodiesel processFOOLPROOF biodiesel processBiodiesel processorsBiodiesel in Hong KongNitrogen Oxide emissionsGlycerineBiodiesel resources on the WebDo diesels have a future?Vegetable oil yields and characteristicsWashingBiodiesel and your vehicleFood or fuel?Straight vegetable oil as diesel fuel

EthanolEthanol resources on the WebIs ethanol energy-efficient?


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Lye From Wood Ash