Sodium Hydroxide – Pure – Food Grade (Caustic Soda, Lye) (1 pound) – Walmart.com – Walmart.com.

Lye used to be available in the supermarket but not anymore. You might be able to find it in some hardware stores often in the drain cleaning section next to the Draino. If you can’t find lye for soapmaking locally, do not worry there are plenty of online stores where you can get it.

Some shops carry it as Red Devil lye with laundry supplies. It’s also found, usually in an impure form, in solid drain cleaners. Craft stores carry lye for soapmaking. There is also food-grade sodium hydroxide, sold in some specialty cooking stores.

Sodium hydroxide, also called caustic soda or lye, is a traditional ingredient for soap-making. While potassium hydroxide is more common in liquid soap-making, it is possible to produce liquid soaps using caustic soda.

Dove. It is true that the words “lye” or “sodium hydroxide” do not appear on the Dove ingredient label. But, the first ingredients listed were sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, and sodium palm kernelate. Yes, Dove is made with lye!

The Differences Soap supply company Essential Depot states via their website: “Food grade has a lower parts per million of heavy metal impurities.” In the U.S., food grade lye must meet strict guidelines prescribed by the FDA. Technical grade sodium hydroxide contains more impurities.

Food. Lyes are used to cure many types of food, including the traditional Nordic lutefisk, olives (making them less bitter), canned mandarin oranges, hominy, lye rolls, century eggs, pretzels, bagels, and the traditional Turkish pumpkin dessert Kabak tatlısı (creating a hard crust while the inside remains soft).

Baked soda is also strong enough to make a good lye substitute for pretzels. Just dissolve 2/3 cup (about 100 grams) in 2 cups of water, immerse the formed raw pretzels in this solution for three to four minutes, rinse off the excess dipping solution in a large bowl of plain water, and bake.

If you’re baking and need lye water but are unable to find it or don’t have the time to go out and get it the first and most appropriate substitute is a baking soda solution. The humble baking soda can be used in place of lye to create a solution that will substitute your lye in many baked recipes.

A common home alternative to lye when making pretzels or bagels is to use a baking soda solution.

Most bakers use food-grade lye, which is the chemical equivalent of drain cleaner, but is produced and packaged in a clean, regulated way. Since the lye dip is heavily diluted and the pretzel is baked after dipping, it won’t kill you.

Lye can burn the skin and damage the eyes in the dry or wet form. It also releases fumes, when mixed with water, that can harm the lungs. If swallowed, lye will burn the esophagus and can cause death.

Caustic soda has been affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the FDA for direct addition to human food under conditions set forth in 21 CFR §184.1763.

This strong alkaline compound is used sparingly in baking due its dominate properties. While stronger solutions of lye have been made famous for making soap and other cleaners, food-grade lye is a much milder solution. It is commonly used as a preservative or softening agent.

A single taste of lye would cause third-degree burns on the mouth and the esophagus, the muscular tube that connects the throat to the stomach. If a sufficiently large dose of lye is swallowed, the alkali can cause perforations in the esophagus and stomach, which can lead to death in fatal cases.

The process is called alkaline hydrolysis and was developed in this country 16 years ago to get rid of animal carcasses. It uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in big stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers.

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or lye is considered to be alkaline. It is considered a strong base because it can dissociate from the hydrogen ion into a…