Permsteading.com

Thanks for the lye recipe, George. My gf and I have been talking about making some before making bar soap.

So, how do you make sure each pig gets it's share of that slop with the lye in it?

That is awesome info. Love the part about the chickens, mine are always scratching around when I throw the ashes out there. Good find man!

That method of making lye from ashes has been around since before the pioneers started to move west. There is a stage coach stop at the foot of Laurel Mountain just before you get to Fort Ligioner here locally called the Compass Inn. It is 1/2 log and 1/2 stone and has been restored as a Museum of sorts. They have a large brick bake oven out side in a separate building that baked a weeks worth of bread and rolls at a time as well as a barn full of old harness for Conestoga wagons etc. There was a round log rotted out in the center that was used to make lye. The log was placed upright under an eve to catch rain water run off. They placed straw, soldiered into the opening of the log so that they were all pointed the same direction as a filter. The log was then filled to the top with wood ashes and the rain water was allowed to perk down through the straw slowly. The log was placed on a flat stone that had a circular channel chiseled into it to catch the water as it came out and there was a spout that dripped into a bucket. If the lye was too weak you just dumped it back through again. It was a low tech process that worked well using only what you had at hand. I was impressed with the stone that they used to catch the lye, it was obviously an original tool from the 1700's.