My two-cents: 100% coconut oil makes a pretty harsh soap. Use 15 to 30% coconut oil and olive oil (or canola, the poor soap makers olive oil substitute) for the remainder. If a harder soap is what you're after, lard is excellent. A pound of lard is $2 at my local grocery store. I like 25% coconut oil and 75% lard. Great Value shortening is my other main go to for soap. The old fashioned shortening with tallow and lard as ths first ingredients is best.
Just made up a batch of 6 bars. I used wood ashes from my wood stove. Blend of hardwoods,pine, whatever I find dry to use during the cold months. Tested it, was weak, heated down a 1/2 gal of lye water to 2 pints. At that it floated a potato piece. Added 1 pint of processed deer tallow. Took about 6 hours to get it to trace a thick standing trace. Cut bottems off 6 Pepsi 16 oz. Bottles and use these to put the soap in. I'll let ya know in a couple weeks how good it came out. It smells like soap. The pot I used to mix it in cleaned up super shiny with just hot water and remnants of the soap.i added a teaspoon of salt when I mixed it together and once it raised up I took the pot outside in the cold as i mixed it until it was ready to put in the soap molds. Bottle bottoms.
Not sure how I missed this video. Such a interesting process. You are so right about the oil, it is blended and processed thus changing it's compound. These soaps came put beautiful thought!
well done friend. I don't know if I missed it, if you add a tablespoon (or so) of salt it will help harden the soap....it won't make it perfect but just a bit better. Thanks for the info I've been making soap for years but have never made it from Wood Ash which is how I ended up here.
A couple of things for SAFETY REASONS ONLY. Full disclaimer, I haven't made soap yet so I've been watching vids and this is why I watched yours. I had to go back to rewatch a few other's vids bc of what they've all said is 1. Add the lye to the fat, NEVER the other way around. 2. This may be why your soap is a harder soap, but they all added more lard than lye. 3. According to these others, the lard and lye HAVE to be the same temp when combined together. Again, I'm only bringing this up for safety reasons for your viewers. Also, I'm learning this process myself so I'm open to your thoughts.
Well I realize you're trying to be helpful. No one else is creating soap with wood ash so it's a completely different process. Most don't work over a fire either. It should be noted that this is a very aggressive soap which came in very handy with a certain outbreak that closed everything down. A lot of the videos out there you're using lye from chemical based products like drain cleaner. You can't compare that to what I did here because they're too completely different animals. And most people will have a better result using the drain cleaner type recipes but if you try to do this soap using wood ash working with the way they use recipes for the drain cleaner you will have some very dangerous results so safety is to stay with the methodology that I use in this video because you're combining volatile chemicals and chemical lye is not the same as what I'm producing here
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 thank you for your response. Only one of the people that I've watched have used the cleaner lye product but I'm trying to build knowledge and supplies of natural, non-store or non-manmade products to have on hand, so the other vids like yours I've watched have all been made with wood ash lye that have given those warnings. I get that everyone may have their own way of making things, I'm just concerned about the safety of the process before I make it myself. Obviously you've shown that maybe the warnings aren't as serious or maybe the warnings are coming from the newer version of soap making using cleaning lye into the older traditional side of wood ash soap making and the warnings do not necessarily need to be there??? Although the one lady I watched is from another country and made it on top of a wood stove so I got the impression that it is a recipe passed down through the generations. Again, IDK. Just like canning and food preservation, I'm trying to learn and teach this all to myself and g'kids. I sure wish my g'mother was still alive but thankful I saw her doing a lot of this stuff myself at a very young age. Thank you, btw, for your vid on sharpening the blades of a hand crank meat grinder. I found it very useful and am going to try it with an old model I recently bought.
Wood ash is what we are extracting the lye from which makes the soap. And also can be sifted for larger granules for scrubbing. But the lye from ash makes very strong soap .
If you cook down the lye solution completely would that create a crystallized form of pure lye that you could not only use for soap recipes that call for sodium hydroxide but also for things like cleaning and drain clearing like regular store bought lye? Trying to figure it some of these things out so I can get the most out of everything but also try to be more exact so I have less loss i.e. trial and error on recipes for soaps and whatnot.
Yes you can cook down for dirty version and work fine impurities make it look less like Crystal's but work the same if not better just use gloves as be extremely strong
It honestly lathers up okay but lather is not really what gets you clean honestly. This soap has a very strong cutting to it and other words your hands actually feel somewhat stripped after you're done. Everyone came to us to get a few bars of this throughout the beginning of the pandemic because there's nothing that can clean your hands more than this. Since it takes time to set we actually started making a cream hand soap so that we wouldn't have to give it time to age and harden. If you have ever used lava soap think about a stronger version of that and that should be a decent comparison
And these times this is probably the best soap to use because if you even put your hands on it it takes a while to wash the soap off your hands just because of the kind of soap it is which makes it great to make people wash their hands longer but because most soaps are made with paraffin now they're not as good at cleaning hands for germs lye based soap is always better
If any of them can get here(youtube)...the potential knowledge gained would be life changing, and directly applied to what they already know..just talking outloud :) Best wishes.
If you do it with chemical lye it be too strong but the wood ash lye weaker but feel free to lower it but the lower you go softer soap will be . This recipe it what everyone comes to us for to wash hands in this pandemic . A very aggressive soap
Ive been canning meat for 2 days..only 5 canner runs, but I have a ton of trimmed fat.. Im trying to find a use for it, after I reduce it from the grissel. I think Im getting close! :)
Don't even try making lye with soft wood ... it's a waste of time. It comes out too weak to make soap. You could add it to a load of laundry when you wash it, and maybe it would come out a hair cleaner. That's about it. I know, because I tried hard to get usable lye out of soft wood, that being the only kind of wood ashes I had available!
Hi! I don´t think you´ve had faked soybean oil, it just naturally has no lauric acid and very small amount of palmitic acid, so, used as mono-oil it can make no really hard soap. Suppose, you should check fatty acids of oil you use-there are tables, it will help with predicting qualities of your soap
Actually most vegtable oils are not 100% soy bean oils. Generally a blend of multiple oils as we have now learned only the cheapeat ones are 100 percent soybean oil. And yes soy bean oil is not prime for soap or anything else imo. But this soap batch did get extremely hard after cure thats the benefit of getting lye from ashes. This also has become our family and all our neighbors go to during this virus as it is a slightly harsh soap and does excellent job breaking down fats and oils.
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 Oh, it´s really interesting-hardening of this soap after cure! Woodash has KOH only, i thought, it isn´t possible for this kind of soap to really harden! Do you know why it happened?
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 So, in this upload of yours, you tested with two eggs. You threw them away? Thank you very much! I just failed two batches of soap using this medieval method😂😂 I tested my wood ash lye water, the egg sank. Can I boil it, and keep testing the strength? Will this boiling method, which you taught, helps? Secondly, can I wait for the solution to cool down, add my oils then only start boiling? It scares me when I saw you pouring oils into the boiling solution! Thank you in advance, sir!
You have to do it the way I showed to make it work. Now you have to start off with ashes from hardwood which I mentioned in the video. No you cannot keep the eggs throw them away. Keep boiling the solution until the eggs float. This method is easier than you're making it You're heavily overthinking it
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 Noted, sir! Sir, can I use the same egg repeatedly, or do I need to change a new egg for every testing? I'm truly very very sorry to disturb you…very sorry! Thank you, sir🙏🙏🙏🙇🙇🙇
I’m not trying to be rude or anything but do you know why people watch TH-cam tutorials right big dog? It’s because they wanna watch you do it all… There’s a lot of things that you did not go into detail about for someone who doesn’t know the first thing about this process also.
While you're right you do realize that most people only watch up to 8 minutes of a video right so the longer you make it and the more detail you go in the less people will watch it. Obviously this video is not perfect but gives plenty of base info. Feel free to look into you tube analytics and thank tik tok for this
It's not a primitive skill unless you make the coconut oil or the olive oil. You're already going to the store for that just buy soap instead. I've yet to see anyone on TH-cam make soap without resorting to a commercial product.
I have made it with acorn oil that I made myself. The reality is did you see how long that video was it would have been three times that long had I made it showing how to make acorn oil as well. The reality is you're not going to find anyone who wants to go to those links or watch a video that long.
My two-cents:
100% coconut oil makes a pretty harsh soap. Use 15 to 30% coconut oil and olive oil (or canola, the poor soap makers olive oil substitute) for the remainder.
If a harder soap is what you're after, lard is excellent. A pound of lard is $2 at my local grocery store. I like 25% coconut oil and 75% lard. Great Value shortening is my other main go to for soap. The old fashioned shortening with tallow and lard as ths first ingredients is best.
We have tallow soap video
Just made up a batch of 6 bars. I used wood ashes from my wood stove. Blend of hardwoods,pine, whatever I find dry to use during the cold months. Tested it, was weak, heated down a 1/2 gal of lye water to 2 pints. At that it floated a potato piece. Added 1 pint of processed deer tallow. Took about 6 hours to get it to trace a thick standing trace. Cut bottems off 6 Pepsi 16 oz. Bottles and use these to put the soap in. I'll let ya know in a couple weeks how good it came out. It smells like soap. The pot I used to mix it in cleaned up super shiny with just hot water and remnants of the soap.i added a teaspoon of salt when I mixed it together and once it raised up I took the pot outside in the cold as i mixed it until it was ready to put in the soap molds. Bottle bottoms.
Wow sounds like an awesome brew let us know how it comes out for sure.
Thanks for the excellent tutorial! You have given the exact information I’ve been looking for!
So glad we could be of help
Just tried it today myself and had great results, thank you for the help!
So glad to hear it . It should be noted this type soap is excellent at cleaning hands with this virus situation. Let it cure up and enjoy it
Not sure how I missed this video. Such a interesting process. You are so right about the oil, it is blended and processed thus changing it's compound. These soaps came put beautiful thought!
Lot of work lol.
well done friend. I don't know if I missed it, if you add a tablespoon (or so) of salt it will help harden the soap....it won't make it perfect but just a bit better. Thanks for the info I've been making soap for years but have never made it from Wood Ash which is how I ended up here.
Interesting idea we will try that next time
A couple of things for SAFETY REASONS ONLY. Full disclaimer, I haven't made soap yet so I've been watching vids and this is why I watched yours. I had to go back to rewatch a few other's vids bc of what they've all said is 1. Add the lye to the fat, NEVER the other way around. 2. This may be why your soap is a harder soap, but they all added more lard than lye. 3. According to these others, the lard and lye HAVE to be the same temp when combined together. Again, I'm only bringing this up for safety reasons for your viewers. Also, I'm learning this process myself so I'm open to your thoughts.
Well I realize you're trying to be helpful. No one else is creating soap with wood ash so it's a completely different process. Most don't work over a fire either. It should be noted that this is a very aggressive soap which came in very handy with a certain outbreak that closed everything down. A lot of the videos out there you're using lye from chemical based products like drain cleaner. You can't compare that to what I did here because they're too completely different animals. And most people will have a better result using the drain cleaner type recipes but if you try to do this soap using wood ash working with the way they use recipes for the drain cleaner you will have some very dangerous results so safety is to stay with the methodology that I use in this video because you're combining volatile chemicals and chemical lye is not the same as what I'm producing here
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 thank you for your response. Only one of the people that I've watched have used the cleaner lye product but I'm trying to build knowledge and supplies of natural, non-store or non-manmade products to have on hand, so the other vids like yours I've watched have all been made with wood ash lye that have given those warnings. I get that everyone may have their own way of making things, I'm just concerned about the safety of the process before I make it myself. Obviously you've shown that maybe the warnings aren't as serious or maybe the warnings are coming from the newer version of soap making using cleaning lye into the older traditional side of wood ash soap making and the warnings do not necessarily need to be there??? Although the one lady I watched is from another country and made it on top of a wood stove so I got the impression that it is a recipe passed down through the generations. Again, IDK. Just like canning and food preservation, I'm trying to learn and teach this all to myself and g'kids. I sure wish my g'mother was still alive but thankful I saw her doing a lot of this stuff myself at a very young age. Thank you, btw, for your vid on sharpening the blades of a hand crank meat grinder. I found it very useful and am going to try it with an old model I recently bought.
How many cups of lye and how many cups of oil did you measure
Unfortunately you can't do it this way because using standard lye to make soap is different than cooking down wood ash.
Wood Ash helps what in soap please? I would like to know
Wood ash is what we are extracting the lye from which makes the soap.
And also can be sifted for larger granules for scrubbing. But the lye from ash makes very strong soap .
Would Crisco work?
Yep we show how use it in another of our soap vids
If you cook down the lye solution completely would that create a crystallized form of pure lye that you could not only use for soap recipes that call for sodium hydroxide but also for things like cleaning and drain clearing like regular store bought lye? Trying to figure it some of these things out so I can get the most out of everything but also try to be more exact so I have less loss i.e. trial and error on recipes for soaps and whatnot.
Yes you can cook down for dirty version and work fine impurities make it look less like Crystal's but work the same if not better just use gloves as be extremely strong
Thank you very much.. I like the way you describe the filtration 😀
Lol Glad to help
how long did you wait for lye water to sediment before you mixed it with oil?
3 hours
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 thank you!
How well does it lather?
It honestly lathers up okay but lather is not really what gets you clean honestly. This soap has a very strong cutting to it and other words your hands actually feel somewhat stripped after you're done. Everyone came to us to get a few bars of this throughout the beginning of the pandemic because there's nothing that can clean your hands more than this. Since it takes time to set we actually started making a cream hand soap so that we wouldn't have to give it time to age and harden. If you have ever used lava soap think about a stronger version of that and that should be a decent comparison
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 ok thanks, so this is something that you can bathe with if you take it into the wilderness.
@@Funkafella01 yes
My grandma used to make her own soap like this.
Its alot of work but really nice soap
How ashes ?and oil . In cups
I don't understand your comment I'm sorry
Sharing with a lady who works with people in Haiti. They have wood ash and coconut oil. I sure hope this helps them.
And these times this is probably the best soap to use because if you even put your hands on it it takes a while to wash the soap off your hands just because of the kind of soap it is which makes it great to make people wash their hands longer but because most soaps are made with paraffin now they're not as good at cleaning hands for germs lye based soap is always better
If any of them can get here(youtube)...the potential knowledge gained would be life changing, and directly applied to what they already know..just talking outloud :) Best wishes.
Best video I have seen so far! Tyfs!!
I find this extremely interesting .
I like doing it when not filming lol
I love flavors in my soap
I'm guessing by flavors you mean different smell
Okay I'm adding the vegetable oil now....don't use vegetable oil. Hahaha that made me laugh
Soap don't lye lol
Lmao
Nice dad joke
8:33 4 parts of lye to 1 part of oil; will that be too strong/caustic for the soap?
If you do it with chemical lye it be too strong but the wood ash lye weaker but feel free to lower it but the lower you go softer soap will be . This recipe it what everyone comes to us for to wash hands in this pandemic . A very aggressive soap
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 Thanks for the details!
Perfect explanation
Thank you
Animal fats works best, I would use lard.
Yep since the pandemic we have been making tons of this with lard as it an aggressive soap great for deep cleaning hands
" you don't eat soap " HAHAHAHAHAHA
I hope u dont
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 I gave that up years ago
@@ItsGoodintheWoods only glue now
You know your stuff! I went to trace and got a cream soap. This year Ill be making a hard soap if all goes well.
Nice to make something outta nothing huh . This long process but just knowing i can do it makes me feel good
It does. This year I processed the ash all the way to crystals. Now I need to figure out the ratios of potassium carbonate, water, and lard.
In a modern kitchen with measuring cups... how many years in the future until this is considered primitive? 100? 500?
Lol hard to tell 25 Maybe
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 maybe when we have food replicator from star trek then this will be considered primitive
Thanks for the nice tip I will try greetings from #chunstravelog
Thanks for watching
Ive been canning meat for 2 days..only 5 canner runs, but I have a ton of trimmed fat.. Im trying to find a use for it, after I reduce it from the grissel. I think Im getting close! :)
Check out our tallow soap video
This is a great idea! Tallow makes wonderful soap!
Shortning would probably work
Works great actually
Put your gloves on your making me nervous 😥
Yep should be wearing gloves
The Frugal Homestead have you seen fight club?? Lol
Don't even try making lye with soft wood ... it's a waste of time. It comes out too weak to make soap. You could add it to a load of laundry when you wash it, and maybe it would come out a hair cleaner. That's about it. I know, because I tried hard to get usable lye out of soft wood, that being the only kind of wood ashes I had available!
Yeah as i said it not optimal.
Allow them to cure first
Yep
I think it's okay.
PS review z ratio
If you're speaking of the ratio of oil to ash concentrate it would be my understanding that it would be based on the content of your ashes
Hi! I don´t think you´ve had faked soybean oil, it just naturally has no lauric acid and very small amount of palmitic acid, so, used as mono-oil it can make no really hard soap. Suppose, you should check fatty acids of oil you use-there are tables, it will help with predicting qualities of your soap
Actually most vegtable oils are not 100% soy bean oils. Generally a blend of multiple oils as we have now learned only the cheapeat ones are 100 percent soybean oil. And yes soy bean oil is not prime for soap or anything else imo. But this soap batch did get extremely hard after cure thats the benefit of getting lye from ashes. This also has become our family and all our neighbors go to during this virus as it is a slightly harsh soap and does excellent job breaking down fats and oils.
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 Oh, it´s really interesting-hardening of this soap after cure! Woodash has KOH only, i thought, it isn´t possible for this kind of soap to really harden! Do you know why it happened?
Sir, I just saw that you put the egg in the boiling water. Does this mean, the egg is cooked? Thank you in advance!
Don't eat the egg it is to test the strength of the solution
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 So, in this upload of yours, you tested with two eggs. You threw them away? Thank you very much! I just failed two batches of soap using this medieval method😂😂 I tested my wood ash lye water, the egg sank. Can I boil it, and keep testing the strength? Will this boiling method, which you taught, helps? Secondly, can I wait for the solution to cool down, add my oils then only start boiling? It scares me when I saw you pouring oils into the boiling solution! Thank you in advance, sir!
You have to do it the way I showed to make it work. Now you have to start off with ashes from hardwood which I mentioned in the video. No you cannot keep the eggs throw them away. Keep boiling the solution until the eggs float. This method is easier than you're making it You're heavily overthinking it
@@thefrugalhomestead7873 Noted, sir! Sir, can I use the same egg repeatedly, or do I need to change a new egg for every testing? I'm truly very very sorry to disturb you…very sorry! Thank you, sir🙏🙏🙏🙇🙇🙇
@@mayyoke6101 1 egg per batch of r day whatever comes first
I’m not trying to be rude or anything but do you know why people watch TH-cam tutorials right big dog? It’s because they wanna watch you do it all… There’s a lot of things that you did not go into detail about for someone who doesn’t know the first thing about this process also.
While you're right you do realize that most people only watch up to 8 minutes of a video right so the longer you make it and the more detail you go in the less people will watch it. Obviously this video is not perfect but gives plenty of base info. Feel free to look into you tube analytics and thank tik tok for this
It's not a primitive skill unless you make the coconut oil or the olive oil. You're already going to the store for that just buy soap instead.
I've yet to see anyone on TH-cam make soap without resorting to a commercial product.
I have made it with acorn oil that I made myself. The reality is did you see how long that video was it would have been three times that long had I made it showing how to make acorn oil as well. The reality is you're not going to find anyone who wants to go to those links or watch a video that long.