Allow sixteen pounds each of grease and potash for a barrel of soap. The grease should be such as has been well taken care of, viz., tried before it became wormy or mouldy. The potash should be about the color of pumice-stone. That which is red, makes dark soap, unfit for washing clothes. Cut up the grease into pieces of two or three ounces, put it into a tight barrel with the potash; then pour in two pailfuls of rain or spring water. The soap will be soonest made by heating the water, but it is just as sure to be good if made with cold water. Add a pailful of soft water every day, until the barrel is half full, and stir it well each day. A long stick with a cross piece at the lower end, is convenient for the purpose. When the barrel is half full, add no more water for a week or ten days, but continue to stir it daily. After that, add a pailful a day, until the barrel is full. It is the best way to keep soap three or four months before beginning to use it. It spends more economically, and is less sharp to the hands. When half of it has been used, put two pails of soft water to the rest, and stir it up well, from the bottom. The lower half of a barrel of home-made soap is always the strongest. Soft soap, made with clean grease and good potash is of a light nankeen color, and is better for washing flannels and white clothes than any other.
It is good economy to make soap, and it is so little work to make it with potash, and the result is so sure, that no one need to be deterred from it by the fear of trouble or ill-success.
To make Soap with Ashes.
The following method of making soap with ashes has been tried and proved good.
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, and 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. Then have the ashes put in and pressed down, till the hogshead is very full. Scoop a hollow in the centre in which to pour the water, and then fill it with cold soft water, until it will absorb no more. The next day, see if the water has settled away, if so, add more. When it is full, cover it up. After three weeks, draw off the ley, and put it into the soap barrel. Then pour into it twenty pounds of grease, of all kinds, tried and rough, ham skins, and scraps, boiling hot. Stir it very thoroughly, and every day. Have the hogshead filled again, and after three or four weeks draw off the ley, 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 ley 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.
In order to have strong ley the ashes should be of good wood. Walnut and maple ashes are best for the purpose. If you wish to make the soap immediately, the water for filling the leach should be nearly boiling, and it can be drawn off the next day.
Leached ashes are useful to spread upon grass.