Photo essay To Make Black Sope

Fill a 5-gallon bucket with filtered ashes, tamping down intermittently for a tight fit. Level the top leaving about 2 inches of headroom. Slowly pour rain water on top, enough for about a layer of an inch on top. Let it sink in. When there is no more water on top, add another inch of water and let it sink in. It should take about a day of slowly adding water until it starts to drip out at the hole at the bottom. If your bucket goes faster tamp the ashes down better next time, or plug it up for about a day. When the lye begins dripping regularly add a layer of water for a slow and steady drip, drip. Collect the drip lye in a second bucket below the dripping bucket and when there is about a gallon test the strength.

If using grey ashes (hardwood only) the dripped lye will be dark brown and it probably won’t float an egg. Heat the lye and evaporate until it has the desired strength, which is likely to about a quarter of its volume. Use cast iron or stainless steel for heating lye, never aluminum (creates noxious gases in combination with lye) or enamel (lye etches). Cool down before use, real hot lye added to oils can scald the soap but also this way, contaminant salts will settle out of solution and a more pure lye water can be poured off the next day. Discard the sediment.

 

Check egg in clean water, to make sure it sinks flat.  Egg in straight drip lye (almost sinks).   Egg in evaporated lye;
 floats with ¼ shell showing (also referred as the size of a quarter coin); used to make laundry soap.

If using white ashes (high efficiency burn, or fortified with quicklime) the lye will be urine colored and will float an egg from the get go. For sharp laundry soap use as is, for neutral hand soap slowly add some water - in small amounts! - until it suspends an egg in the middle of the jar. Use a clear jar so you can see, like a mason jar.

Straight fortified drip lye (either by adding lime, or using ashes from a high efficient stove); strong enough for laundry soap. Left: Fortified lye is diluted with water to suspend the egg in the middle, for hand soap.

Measure out 1 pound (16 oz) of oil and 3 pounds (48 oz) of lye. Add the lye to the oil; with liquid-by-room-temperature oils the lye and oil are added at room temperature; with tallow and lard, the lye is added when barely melted. Start with olive oil as the process is easier. Mix very well (stick blender helps) and let sit overnight.

Mixing lye and oil to infuse overnight.

The next day again mix very well as the solution will have separated overnight and then turn on the crockpot (slow cooker) on high and close the lid. In about an hour, or two, with an occasional stir but not often as the soap needs the heat, the soap will start to rise and you will see beautiful soap foam forming under the lid. When that happens, open the lid, stir the soap well to cool it down and settle (if you leave it with the lid closed it will foam right out of the crockpot). Return the lid but this time with a toothpick in between to create a little gap to let hot air escape. This way the soap can not foam over anymore but still gets the heat it needs.

Bubbles start to happen… and we have lift off!

After rising keep a toothpick between the lid and insert.

Let the soap cook and cook and cook (still on high) and you will see bubbles happen at the edge of the ceramic insert. This is the soap turning itself. It should never bubble from boiling (too hot), only at the edges from turning itself as soap is an exothermic reaction. Finished soap will start forming on top, which is kind of cool to see happen. Stir occasionally to make sure no dried out spots happen at the edge of the wall, but be aware, stir gently, as it can suddenly foam right up.

 

Forming of the skin. The soap is turning from outside in; it looks like tectonic plates.

The soap will get thicker and thicker and when it incorporates, or finishes, open and remove the lid so excess moisture can evaporate. The soap will look like custard (trace), leave droplet marks on the surface when scooped (or trace marks) and will drip off a spoon with globs. It is not done yet but you’re getting close.

Keep cooking until it starts to resemble Vaseline; it will have little wavy points when stirred and gets a kind of glazed, sleek look. It will stick to the spoon when stirred and not drop off and it will part at the bottom when stirred and lay there piled up and not come back together. For thin soft soap stop here, or keep evaporating moisture until it is as thick as you want (it will never get hard). I go for the whipped cream Vaseline consistency.

The soap starting to come together:

 first as custard, then pudding, and finally –Vaseline!

I have made many a successful soap using this technique and each one comes out the same in about the same time span. When emulating this process but in a pot over an open heat source, keep the heat hot but without boiling and keep a lid on the pot (with pick) – the soap needs heat all around to fully finish is my experience. And be aware that by introducing a more erratic heat source the soap will behave more erratically as well, and can very well decide not to cooperate. This is exactly where the difficult reputation of drip lye soap making comes from!

Finished soap, both Black Soap or soft soap,

one made with grey ashes and one with high quality white ashes.