THRIVING after the FALL

The Index · A subject

Soap, lye and the wash

Lye from ash, soap from fat, and the great wash of the household's linen.

4 documents · 2 chapters · 39 rows

In the chapters

Documents 4

In the Workshop

The bar soap Salt from the road: what the wash removes

In the log 39

  • 17 confirmed
  • 12 amended
  • 1 partly confirmed
  • 9 unresolved
  • 17 marked for safety
  • F1 amended Safety Ergot: alkaloids, gangrene/convulsions, St Anthony's fire; brine at ~1/6 salt (160 g/l) floats sclerotia, wash and dry at once; EU limit 0.5 mg/kg alkaloids in rye flour …
  • F6 amended Safety Potassium soap: KOH lye handling (add flakes to water), 55 g KOH for 250 g oil, pH ~9, >2 % burns, dusk, never on bloom, kills bees wet, hard water scum
  • O1 amended Safety Fox tapeworm: eggs on low leaves/berries, 190 days in soil, 10–15 yr latency, liver 98 %, ~41 cases 2022; washing and −20 °C useless; 70–80 °C ≥5 min kills; cook …
  • A15 amended Safety Red mite: diatomaceous earth LT50 31–34 h, dust bath 70 % sand 30 % soil with DE and ash, repeat every 7–10 days three times; lime-wash cracks; coccidiosis oocysts …
  • A76 amended Safety Salmonella killed at 70 °C held 2 min throughout; never wash an egg (cuticle); a warm egg into cold water draws contamination through the pores; onset 6 to 72 h; dirty, …
  • B11 amended Safety Gullet tied twice before opening; bung ringed, drawn out, tied and bagged first (EHEC 35 % → 1.7 %, "twenty-fold"); midline opened with two fingers inside ahead of the …
  • B19 unresolved Safety Lye and lime: wood-ash lye burns, eyes covered; 1 kg tallow ≈ 140 g NaOH or 200 g KOH; egg-float test (coin-width cap); slaked lime 1 kg/20 l burns eyes and skin, …
  • S7 amended Safety Road salt and softener salt are safe to eat after washing and boiling down; anti-caking agents safe at use levels
  • C4 amended Safety Discard signs (lifted lid, leak, cloudiness, bubbles, spurting, off smell); disposal by burning or deep burial; wash surfaces with lye water
  • M6 amended Safety Mould rules: brush blue and green off dry; cut away black and pink; discard a slipped bloomy rind; mites mean brushing outdoors and lye on the boards
  • D2 unresolved Safety Discard the first 50 ml of every 10 litres of wash as heads; run a solvent-smelling spirit again cutting the first 100 ml
  • D5 amended Safety Copper still: plumbing grade (Cu-DHP) not wire (Cu-ETP); joints riveted or silver-soldered, never lead solder; cut off every old solder joint; scrub black film after …
  • T1 amended Safety Lye (KOH/K2CO3 from ash, causticised with lime) burns skin slowly and painlessly at first, blinds in the eye; strong clear lye looks like water; first aid water in …
  • T10 unresolved Safety Free alkali in finished soap burns hands and rots cloth; tongue "zap" test; cook with more fat
  • T2 confirmed Safety Potash/lye into water, never water onto potash (exothermic spitting); eye covering, sleeves, mittens, vinegar jug and water bucket before starting; nobody under twelve …
  • T3 confirmed Safety Lye stored lidded, labelled, high shelf, never in a bottle that ever held a drink; children taught the sign
  • T59 unresolved Safety Horn: boil 60 to 90 min, strip 18 by 4.5 cm by 3 mm in hot tallow 15 to 20 min, pressed 10 to 15 min, edge scraped to 1 mm; beaker plugged with a wooden disc (book's …
  • W30 confirmed The still is left bare because hot copper binds the wash's sulphur compounds as black copper sulphide, scrubbed off between runs; a tinned or stainless head gives a …
  • W51 confirmed Soapstone mould (Mohs 1 to 1.5) with four register pins and vents, baked 60 min, chargers 240 to 280 mm, solidify 90 to 120 s, 2.5 % shrinkage, burnished with Equisetum …
  • W53 amended Dough trough: log 500 to 600 × 1,200 mm, walls 18 to 22 mm (diagram 18 to 20), dried 4 to 6 months to about 14 % moisture, 12.5 h of work, 40 to 60 years of life, never …
  • F75 confirmed Flax after rye in Thaer's 6 to 7-year rotation with lupin or serradella; seed 130 to 150 kg/ha, 1.0 to 1.5 cm, rows 7.5 to 10 cm, 1,800 to 2,200 stems/m², weed once at 5 …
  • A35 confirmed Hand milking: a litre a minute, 15 l cow = quarter hour each end, an hour a day with washing and cooling; full-hand technique (thumb and forefinger trap, three fingers …
  • B55 confirmed Storage: stoneware crock with lid in the cellar, tallow a year, lard 6–9 months, salt layer on top; enemies light, warmth, air, iron/copper; rancid = paint smell, not …
  • B56 confirmed Tallow melts 45–50 °C; candle: twisted linen/cotton wick dipped 20–30 times in wet-rendered tallow, slumps in August; potash soft soap hardened by boiling with salt …
  • M36 confirmed Butter: cream ripened a day at 20 °C, chilled to 10; churn 15 to 40 min; wash at most a quarter of the cream volume; salt 15 to 20 g/kg; 10 litres of milk to half a …
  • D45 confirmed Still: 10 to 20 l pot, coil 5 to 7 m in cold water; wash at 6 to 10 % ABV, racked clean; fill two-thirds; heart in 200 ml jars; 10 l at 8 % gives about 1 l at 40 %
  • T38 partly confirmed Farmhouse great wash 2–3 times a year; bucking (Beuche) with ash lye poured through a cloth over the linen all night; boiling, beating, rinsing; sun bleaching on the …
  • T39 confirmed Wood ash ~⅓ potash by weight (variable; often 10–30 % K2CO3); hardwood far richer than softwood; pine/spruce ash gives weak tarry lye; beech ash ~1 % of wood weight; Ch …
  • T40 confirmed Leaching barrel: hole 5 cm above base, stones/sticks/straw, rainwater not well water (lime kills lye), 1 bucket ash → ¼ bucket lye, run again or boil down; 2–5 % slaked …
  • T41 confirmed Egg test: fresh egg floats with a coin-sized patch = strong enough for soap; old egg floats in anything; feather dissolves in hot lye; for the wash the lye should be …
  • T42 confirmed Soft soap: 1 kg tallow to 200 g potash (Ch 9) or 3–4 l egg-floating lye; tallow at 40–45 °C, lye in a stream, stir to trace, self-heating, 2–3 h to translucent jelly; …
  • T43 confirmed Household of four: 10–15 kg soap/yr, ~7–8 kg tallow, one winter's beech ash; hard water 14–25 °dH by Berlin district turns soap to scum; wash in rainwater or rinse with …
  • T56 confirmed Flax mass balance: 1 ha gives 3,500 kg dry straw and about 150 kg bleached cloth for 654 h of which 387 spinning; village of 300 needs 3.5 to 4 ha and 75 to 90 winter …
  • T57 confirmed Bleach cycle: lye with lime 8 to 12 h, grass 7 to 14 days wetted every 2 h, buttermilk sour 1 to 10 for 24 to 48 h, repeated 4 to 8 times, lye never over 3 % on cloth; …
  • T58 unresolved Kitchen cloths: quark cloth about 10 by 10 threads/cm, straining cloth 22 by 20 folded fourfold, proofing cloth coarse herringbone floured and never soaped
  • T60 unresolved Laundry tubs: two of about 80 l to a household, life 10 to 15 years
  • J19 unresolved Household year (own): field 1,500–2,000, kitchen ~1,100 (3 h/day), milking ~300 for three goats (twice daily over two lactations), wood 30–50, tools 156, pig 32, …
  • J30 unresolved Animal water (own): cow in milk 60–100 l/day, more in July; goat 5–10; pig 8–15 by weight; laying hen ~0.3 l; house dairy wash 20–40 l/day; household with goats ~300 …
  • J33 unresolved Brandenburg well water: iron-brown, hydrogen-sulphide smell from peat, varies over 100 m; stains linen; stand and pour off the top for washing