BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Soapmaking old fashioned lye soap

My grandmother made old fashioned lye soap in the early part of last century. I am sorry that I did not ask her how to make it when she was still alive. I remember that she talked about hog tallow, water, and lye. Is there someone out there who knows how to make it? I would appreciate hearing from you!!! Thank you!!!!

Yup! That's all you need to make soap. I believe hog tallow would be the same as lard. Lard makes a nice soap.

Here is a basic recipe with just lard as the fat in the soap. I've run this through my soap calculator...

Lard 16 oz
Lye 2.1 oz
Water 4.6 oz

This will make about 4 bars of soap. Now, you need a stainless steel spoon to mix this stuff, you need goggles or a face shield, and gloves. When you mix water & lye together this can burn you. I always mix this outside, never inside my home because the fumes can burn your lungs.

This article goes into detail more about the process of soap making... BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Here's another couple of soap recipes - bascially the same thing, but in larger quantities. Please heed the warnings Jeanne posted! This is not something to fool around with. My mother used to make lye soap, using grease drippings from cooking bacon, mostly, for the fat. It was the only thing that would get the foundry graphite out of my father's work clothes. However, she used a metal tub to mix it in, with a large wooden spoon, always wore gloves. The fumes were obnoxious. One time, she put the finished product on top of a THICK layer of newspapers on the kitchen table, and the soap was still damp enough that the lye ate through the papers and took the varnish off of the wood table top.

How To Make Soap
OLD FASHIONED LYE SOAP
To be cooked outside in iron kettle.

Be sure and make it in dark of the moon so it won't boil over.

30 qt. rain water
4 cans Lewis Lye
18 lb. lard or strained grease
1 lb. Borax

Bring to a boil and cook 45 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden paddle. Keep a bucket of water handy, in case it boils over; dash in a little water. Pull fire out from under kettle when it is through cooking. Cover and let set overnight, or until cold, then cut out in bars.

WHITE FLOATING SOAP

Into enamel kettle or dishpan put 2 quarts melted grease. In a crock or Pyrex bowl dissolve 1 can Lewis Lye in 1 qt. water, stir and allow to cool. Use a wooden spoon.

Into the melted grease add: 1-cup ammonia and 2 tablespoons Borax dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water.

Stir 5 minutes.

Last, when lye water is cool add slowly to grease, stir slowly for 1 hour. Cover and let stand for a while, then stir again. Let stand all-day or overnight. Cut out in cakes.

Don't use for 2 weeks - age improves the soap.

Use a wooden spoon to do the stirring.

Oh, be sure to use stainless steel pots - not aluminum. The lye will eat the aluminum. I also use a stainless steel spoon instead of a wooden spoon.

Always be sure to run a soap recipe through a soap calculator. there's a good one atBellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Thank you very much!!!! I did not know a site was available like this. I a glad that I found you all!!! Dave K.

Hi Dave:
Welcome to the soapmaking forum on Bellaonline. Glad you were helped. Everyone is extremely helpful and friendly - hang with us for a while, make soap, drink tea (or coffee), relax a bit and learn more about soapmaking through our members and the soapmaking site. You can find links to all previously written articles in the sitemap. The link is on the first page of the soapmaking site.

I do remember Granny saying never put the water into the lye, just the reverse. I also remember that she had some crates and dividers. They may have been still in the basement when they had my grandparents sale and I should have bid on them but as a youth, making soap was not a consideration. There were wooden crates with bottoms that I think you would have put some kind of cloth into. Then there were dividers that fit into the crate, some notched at the top and the others notched at the bottom so they fit together and made the dividers that the soap, I presume, was poured into till it cooled or hardened. Why is it that one thinks about these things when one gets older. My Grandfather asked me one day if I wanted their old quilt frame and the family spinning wheel. This was back in the 60's. I just rolled my eyes and thanked him saying politely "no". What an idiot I was back then. I was trying to work for a living and interested in my car and affording gas to go all over the countryside picking up friends to raise hell. I had gold right in front of me and didn't see it. In the last 15 to 20 years these things mean more to me. If anybody can relate, please post. I would enjoy hearing from you!! Dave K.

Hi Dave:
Thanks for sharing your history with us. Wow those soap molds would have been vintage and worth so much sentimentally. Oftentimes our lives are cyclical. What we leave behind and try to escape from to forge a new existence and identity in our youth we return to when we get older.

I know I passed up many valuable antiques in my youth in an effort to clear a path for myself into the future.

It would be good if parents and grandparents could set a trust of sorts and bequeath these goods to children and grandchildren -with instructions that it should be collected 'when matured' preferably after the age of 30 - 40.

I helped make soap with my mother and grandmother, but I don't seem to remember what they used for molds. I do remember cooking the soap in a very large kettle over an open fire. The mold was lined with some kind of a mesh. We made our own lye too and judged the strength, by how high or low the egg sank into the lye water.

Irena aka soapbuddy