Some people take a barrel without
any bottom, and lay sticks and straw across to prevent the ashes from
falling through. To make a barrel of soap, it will require about five
or six bushels of ashes, with at least four quarts of unslacked stone
lime; if slacked, doable the quantity.
When you have drawn off a part of the lye, put the lime (whether slack
or not) into two or three pails of boiling water, and add it to the
ashes, and let it drain through.
It is the practice of some people, in making soap, to put the lime
near the bottom of the ashes when they first set it tip; but the lime
becomes like mortar, and the lye does not run through, so as to get
the strength of it, which is very important in making soap, as it
contracts the nitrous salts which collect in ashes, and prevents the
soap from _coming_, (as the saying is.) Old ashes are very apt to be
impregnated with it.
Three pounds of grease should be put into a pailful of lye. The great
difficulty in making soap '_come_' originates in want of judgment
about the strength of the lye. One rule may be safely trusted--If your
lye will bear up an egg, or a potato, so that you can see a piece of
the surface as big as ninepence, it is just strong enough.
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