Soap Making

[oxydolfan1]

"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.

 

[launderess]

Oh I Don't Know About That

Saw cans of lye whilst down at the shops before Thanksgiving, right where they always have been, near the Drano in the cleaning product section.

 

[lederstiefel1]

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

 

[sudsmaster]

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???

 

[maytagbear]

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

 

[toggleswitch]

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.

 

[sudsmaster]

Still puzzled as to why brush on Easy Off would have any particular siginificance for kosher/Passover purposes....?

 

[oxydolfan1]

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...

 

[sudsmaster]

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.