Grandmother’s recipes: 3 lye-lard soap recipes you would love to try

Posted by Editor on May 20th, 2012 under Lye Soaps - Tips, RecipesTags: ,  • No Comments

When one talks of lye soap, one talks of grandmother’s soaps. Though lye is used as an ingredient in many soaps, today it would be considered a bit old fashioned to make purely lye-based soaps. However, lye can be made into soaps for the same reasons our colonial ancestors used it. With modern science, we [...]

Food Grade Lye and Making Pretzels

Posted by admin on May 18th, 2012 under Uncategorized • No Comments

Lye is used in the baking of pretzels, in order to create the glaze on top of the pretzel. You allow the pretzels to sit in a lye bath, and the lye will cake the glaze right on it. Here’s an example recipe: For this recipe you’ll need: 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon yeast 1 [...]

Sodium Hydroxide and soap making: 5 uses of lye soaps you just can’t ignore

Posted by Editor on May 17th, 2012 under Lye Soaps - Tips, Recipes, Uses of LyeTags: , , ,  • 1 Comment

Sodium Hydroxide is used variously in all sorts of domestic cleaning and laundry products. The most common use of lye is in the soap making industry. Soap makers simply cannot do without a lye soap, so much so that there are some who say, all soap is lye soap. As an alkali, lye reacts strongly [...]

It’s lye all over: 9 common and less-known industrial uses of lye

Posted by Editor on May 16th, 2012 under Industrial applications, Uses of LyeTags: , ,  • No Comments

If you think that the use of lye is circumscribed only to soap making and domestic cleaning, you maybe wrong. Lye or caustic soda has an array of industrial applications too. An essential ingredient in multifarious industrial processes, lye is normally produced by the chlor-alkali process which involves use of brine solution. When manufactured through [...]

When your whites turn yellow: Pros and cons of bleaching with lye

Posted by Editor on May 15th, 2012 under Cleaning, Uses of LyeTags: , ,  • No Comments

Imagine your favorite white T-shirt turning yellow or cream or a shade of gray. Whites are not white if they fail to have a gleam in them. The initial newly-bought gleam fades away and all our white clothes turn yellow in course of time. To restore the whiteness of our clothes, we use bleaches. Bleaches [...]

Touch wood: 6 tips to use lye to refinish your old wood furniture

Posted by Editor on May 14th, 2012 under Cleaning, Uses of LyeTags: , , ,  • No Comments

What do you do when your wood furniture starts showing signs of age? Aged wood has a lot of marks, stains and blotches on its surface. It is often ugly to look at and may not sync in with new wood if you want to make some new piece of furniture with old wood. This [...]

An arsenal of lye: 3 dangers in using lye to unclog drains

Posted by Editor on May 13th, 2012 under Cleaning, Uses of LyeTags: , , ,  • No Comments

Lye is not all about cheerful things. Of course, it helps in soap making, chemical processes, manufacturing of industrial products and a whole array of applications and uses. Though all these bring cheers to one, it is not a benevolent element like water. It is as harmful as a chemical like sulphuric acid. Often one [...]

Making pretzels with lye: 2 yummy recipes for American kitchens

Posted by Editor on May 12th, 2012 under Food Processing, Uses of LyeTags: , ,  • No Comments

If you are a die-hard fan of pretzels, you know how it feels to have that yummy little delicacy run down your tongue and food pipe. Pretzels are well-known in American kitchens, but not all pretzels made in the United States are true German ones. Originally a local German delicacy, the German pretzel entered into [...]

Why you can’t do without it: 6 must-know things about lye

Posted by Editor on May 11th, 2012 under Lye Facts, Uses of LyeTags: , , , , ,  • No Comments

Yes, you may not be able to do without lye, because it is present all around you – in your soaps, your cleaning products, your leather-making process, in fabric making, metal polishers and almost every other household product that cleans. Even the pretzels, rolls and noodles you take have lye in them. So, what is [...]

Make lye at home from wood ash: 10 practical steps to follow

Posted by Editor on May 9th, 2012 under Lye Facts, Tips to make LyeTags: , , ,  • No Comments

Handling chemicals is not an easy job and handling lye or sodium hydroxide is no better. If you are in the habit of making soaps at home, you would probably know how to handle lye solution, and maybe this is the right time for you to experiment making lye at home. Generally caustic soda that [...]