Frontier Friday - How to Make Soap from Ashes

Making Soap from Ashes

(This is a museum piece only - and intended only to show how the pioneers made soap.  It is not practical for today)

Provide a leach cask, that is, one that is large at the top and small at the bottom. If this is not readily obtained, procure a hogshead that will not leak, have the head taken out at one end, and set it, propped forward a little, upon logs placed right and left, and high enough from the ground to set a pail under the front side. There should be a hole in the bottom, close to the front, with a tight plug in it. Lay in two or three bricks around the plug hole, and across them some bits of board, so as to reserve a space that will keep the ashes from packing close against the plug hole - also several bricks here and there over the bottom with straw or brush laid on them. Have your soap barrel ready.


Then have the ashes put in and pressed down, till the hogshead is very full. Scoop a hollow in the center in which to pour the water and then fill it with cold soft water, until it will hold no more. The next day, see if the water has settle away; if so, add more. When it is full, cover it up. Then pour into it 20 pounds of grease of all kinds, tried and rough, ham skins, and scraps, boiling hot. Stir it very thoroughly every day during the process.

Have the hogshead filled again, after three or four weeks draw off the lye, which will, this time, be comparatively weak; fill up the soap barrel, and continue to stir it daily for a week or two. The first lye being very strong, will completely eat up even the coarsest of the grease, and after three or four months you will have a barrel of excellent soap, fit for use.