Soap Making

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My wash is cleaner than yours

Except

There is an interesting legend surrounding the discovery of soap making. This legend accords the discovery of soap to the Romans so it must be a Roman legend to confront the Celtic claim to soap making. Probably both of these inventive peoples discovered soap making independently. The legend says soap was first discovered by women washing clothes along the Tiber River at the bottom of Sapo Hill. The women noticed the clothes became cleaner with far less effort at that particular location. What was happening? The ashes and the grease of animals from the sacrificial fires of the temples situated on the top of Sapo Hill mixed with the rain, making soap which ran down the slope in the streams of rain water giving the women a wash day bonus. You can see at a glance saponification, the chemical name for the soap making reaction, bears the name of that hill in Rome long ago, which caused one Roman washer women to comment to another, "My wash is cleaner than yours".
 
GRIN!

Excerpt.

Phosphate compounds used as builders in these detergents vastly improved performance, making them suitable for cleaning heavily soiled laundry.
 
Nice link, Togg. I like the "Mt. Sapo - Saponification" connection, as well.

As was discussed in another thread, soap and "detergent" share one quality - they are both surfactants. A surfactant lowers surface tension. It does this by being "bipolar". No, not manic/depressive, but having a hydrophobic (water hating) group on one end of the molecule (the fatty acid part) and hydrophilic (water loving) group on the other end (the salt part). Soap goes detergent one better: it is also a water softener.

Unfortunately, soap's ability to soften water also is its Achilles heel. As it binds up hard water minerals, it falls out of solution (precipitates) and forms a soap scum. A synthetic detergent doesn't bind up minerals, so it doesn't get inactivated by hard water the way soap will.

This difference has to do with the different hydrophilic (water loving) end on the soap molecule vs. that of the detergent molecule. Which is better? It depends on what you want to do. For some things - like washing hands - a plain soap is often better. For laundry, a detergent is usually better. But it all depends on so many variables that any blanket statement is likely to elicit anectdotal evidence to the contrary.
 
I have taken to putting a bar of Ivory SOAP in the kitchen. the feel of it is nice. Wash some dishes in it. Very different than detergent.Still, I like my DAWN (Fairy in the UK) brand detergent for pots and pans.
 
My grandmother would NEVER use anything but plain Ivory bar soap to wash the dishes with! To her way of thinking, the bottled dish liquid was wasteful...

I know castile soaps are in vogue right now, but they just don't get me clean in the shower...for that, I need old-school Ivory or aque Zest (although they have CHANGED the Zest formula from synthetic to soap ingredients, grrrr....)

Since you mention Dawn, and speaking of changes...P&G recently superconcentrated the original Dawn formula, and changed the little bottle. For what it's worth, the new bottle is horrible to hold on to, when your hands are wet and sloppy from cooking, they put this ginormous new flip-top cap on the bottle that only catches the excess when you pour it out, and, even though the bottle is marked "Original Scent", they have engaged in revisionist marketing, because that ain't the scent I remember.

Sorry, rant over:)...I just don't get why they keep "improving" my Holy Grail products to a point where I can't stand them anymore!

Years ago, they had a "Dawn Free" unscented, colorless dish liquid...I'm usually not one for such variants, but it was PHENOMENAL and kicked every other Dawn format behind, hands down...and, of course, they discontinued it!

CR recently recommended the Ecover dish liquid product....I tried it, and have to admit, I was impressed with it.
 
bar soap and soda

Except in the dishwasher, of course, I use also only soda and, for fatty items, added grated bar-soap for washing up items that cannot go into the dishwasher for any reason! I don't like dishwashing-liquid at all!

Ralf
 
made at home

My grandmother made soap at home. We didn't buy soap. Lye soap was used to clean everything but was made in different strengths depending on it's use. I still make soap the way my grandmother taught me. I buy some modern soaps from time to time but always end up going back to the traditional soap. I remember granny shaving off soap in the wash water of her ringer machine. It was also great for washing dishes and mopping the floors. I have made a point to avoid petroleum based soaps. The only change I made in how I make the soap is using olive oil in place of animal fat for bath soap. I seem to have an allergy to Ivory soap, it makes me brake out in a rash. I agree with the viewpoint of modern dish soap being expensive and wasteful but I have to admit I like Dawn. It comes closest to cleaning the way my granny's soap did.
 
I don't know about the recipe, but here are the instructions for soap:

1) Run hot water tap until the water is hot.

2) Temper the water with cold until it feels good.

3) Work up a rich lather with the soap with both hands.

4) Apply judiciously to those parts of the body in need of soap.

5) Rinse.

6) Repeat, as needed.

;-)
 
Soap making

Here is a link for some bascic information and instructions. There are many different recipes and methods. There is a link on the page called "The way Al makes soap" which is pretty much my method also. TAKE NOTE:Follow safety instructions carefully as you are dealing with lye which can be dangerous. No, mrcleanjeans, no soap film. I have never had any on my glassware. Most of my everyday dishware was made between 1790's and 1860's (mostly Old Paris China)and I am very particular about its cleaning and care. I have found that rinsing with extremely hot water and drying with a soft cotton towel leave a nice sparkle to the dishes and glassware. These are items I would never venture to put in a dishwasher because they have gold trim and machine washing would errode the gold over time.

I encourage folks to explore some of the soap recipes. There is alot of personal preference involved also. In the antebellum period most yeomnan farm homes had unfinished floors that were scrubbed with lye soap which kept the floors white and clean. The floors in my house (circa 1797) were unfinished until 1982 when the then owner decided to stain and seal them. I am in process of refinishing them and returning to the 19th century appearence and care. The varnish makes the heart pines floors look orange and a good cleaning only brightens the orange glow.

Give Al's recipe a try and let us know what you think! By the way, there is a great picture on the website of a yound woman standing over a wash tub with a scrub board. "Waiting for Automation" Check it out!

Greg

http://www.waltonfeed.com/old/soaphome.html
 
One more thing....WARNING!!!

You can't buy lye in the general marketplave anymore. Old fashioned "Red Devil Lye" was taken off the shelves several years ago because of something to do with meth.labs. I get mine from "Texas Natural Supply Company" through mail order. Should anyone decide to give this a try I urge you to not use the lye sold in the grocery stores to open clogged drains. It contains small metal particles (that thwart the meth makers)which you will find very harmful in a batch of soap.

You will also find many great products from TNSC.
 
Red Flags

Yea, toggle, I know. The amount needed for making soap on a regular basis is far less than what would be required for a meth operation I am told. I was really shocked when I learned why it was taken off the market. It would never have occured to me to use it for such but then again my mind is geared for better pursuits (such as folks here). There is to much fun to have at AW than to waste time getting your rear in trouble with the law. ....I was on a jury a few years ago and we convicted a young man of running such a lab. I almost lost it when the guilty verdict was announced because I overheard a woman behind me say..."he'd better pick out his weddin' china 'cause he's 'bout to be a prison bride!"

Still, I encourage anybody interested to give it a try. Making soap that is. Not the other.
 
"No wonder I haven't seen liquid, brush-on Easy-Off brand lye oven-cleaner for a while."

T, you will probably be able to find this product in any major kosher supermarket in Queens, the UWS, or Brooklyn, as the Passover season approaches.

It is a very popular product, but is generally only brought out for the Jewish holiday prep period. Sometimes, it is under a different brand name, but a very similar label and is essentially the same product.

Once in a blue moon, you'll see it in a dollar store as well.
 
Soap Making

Hi to all of you!

Well...I used to make my own soap for years and therefor have about five or six books, most of them from the States, as there are not many good books available here in Germany anymore on the market nowadays!
But stopped that because of our small place here, but will hopefully start again as soon as we have found a new home (house) with more space than in our little appartement with just 45m²...!
There's nothing better, I found out, and nothing cheaper, too!

For floor cleaning I use only soft-soap which I buy still in supermarkets here in buckets of 5 liter/kgs for just 6.90€ and which will last for about half a year at least!

For pre-treating on bad stains or haevily soiled areas on washing, I use my self-made wash-soap which I sponge onto the stains or areas before dropping the items into the suds.

For manual dish-washing I use, as mentioned above, washing-soda and bar-soap for fatty things and made a dishwashing liquid myself for quick cleaning of single items in between, containing soda, water, soft-soap and a bit of alcohol to keep it liquid in the bottle; looks like bottled honey.

Ralf
 
I have seen granulated lye at hardware stores quite recently. But I haven't seen brush-on liquid Easy-Off lye for several years.

Why would the liquid brush-on Easy-Off lye be of particular use for kosher Passover preparations? Is it because there is something not kosher about aerosol oven cleaners, or self-cleaning ovens???
 
A self cleaning oven,

according to all books I have read on Jewish homekeeping is also a self-koshering oven. You run it once to clean it, then run it again to kasher it.

"How To Run A Traditional Jewish Household" by Blu Greenberg.

--She's a rebbitzen (rabbi's wife) so I would imagine she would know.

(At one time, I was deeply involved with a Jewish man.)

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
To me the most interesting thing I had heard from a Jewish friend who observes is that electricity is the modern equivalent of fire.

*DUH*
So obvious, so apparent, and yet made a striking impression.

In an aparmtent I took in 1985, there had been a part-time Rabbi, with a day job. (Apparently a concenpt that did not work out after that era.) There were twist-ties on one gas burner grate of the stove/cooker and on one of two oven racks. Apparently this was to indicate which ones were meat/dairy/Kosher for Passover or otherwise specially designated.

Old-fashoned porcelain double sinks that were once required by law in NYS (with a deep laundry tub and a shallow sink) were also used for differend levels of Kosher/holdiays.
 
IIRC, it's not the brush, but the form of the Easy-Off, as the aerosol version contains either alcohol, or some derivative of it that is not permitted under certain authorities.

There are certain stringencies that are followed during the Passover holiday period regarding many popular cleaning products that do not need to be adhered to during the rest of the year.

The goopy form of Easy-Off that comes in the container with the brush is brushed on rather than sprayed, and then allowed to sit.

There is a newer product named "All Gone" by St. Moritz that is popular in the Orthodox community that is permitted, but it is the most toxic, noxious cleaning chemical that many moms refuse to allow in their houses, as the fumes have seriously sickened children (another such popular chemical that is similarly dangerous is a floor finish called "Moisture Cure", extremely resilient on the wood flooring used in Brooklyn in lieu of the carpeting that the Orthodox shun).

It is permitted to place a boiling hot pan of water in the over beforehand to soften whatever crud lurks within, but I was always directed not to add ammonia to the water.

The broiler pan and racks are not considered to be clean unless you run a blowtorch over them (yes, this is true). After this, every inch of the oven's interior, racks and all, must be lined with aluminum, and it is then declared off-limits until the onset of the holiday.

A lot of the cleaning procedures are steeped in ritual and seem old-fashioned, by today's standards (for instance, you clean a stainless steel sink and then kasher it by pouring a specific, predetermined amount of boiling water in it, over the sides and on top), and appliances that have been kashered for Pesach are marked as such and not used.

Most of the cleaning products commonly used for Passover cleaning tend to be the old-school ones and I always assumed (correct me if I'm wrong) that, since the oven cleaner with the brush had such a dated look to it, it was actually a throwback to the postwar era.

Also, none of what I've written here should be interpreted as halachically accepted, universally accepted gospel regarding Passover cleaning procedures...rather, it is simply what I observed and participated in, at a time in my life when I had exposure to a particular, religious community.

For official instructions, please consult your local Orthodox rabbi...:)
 
The rituals do seem a bit odd and superfluous to me, but I can't argue with someone else's faith.

For what it's worth, I did some research on how to make a substitute for the brush on Easy-Off. Basically it's concentrated lye with a thickening agent added. Any number of substances can serve as a thickening agent; the one I remember is cornstarch. Of course preparing such goop must be done very carefully because lye can get quite hot when not enough water is added to lye, and can actually sputter and spray one with corrosive drops (it's called an exothermic reaction). One should always add the lye to the water, gradually, to limit the heating and the chances of a boil. When I make a prep of concentrated lye I do it in heat safe non-metal container (pyrex is good), in the sink, with rubber gloves and of course my eyeglasses in place. It's also a good idea to keep a squirt bottle of white vinegar securely nearby to neutralize any splashes on your skin. Lye takes a long time to wash off the skin if it's not neutralized, and all that time it's eating away at you.
 

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