Anonymous said...

About the carbonate. Another source is baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and lye (sodium hydroxide or
caustic soda). Mix one weight part of lye with 2,1 weight parts of baking soda in water, that is exactly
the same as using 3,1 weight parts of monohydrated sodium carbonate. The chemical reaction is: NaOH
(lye) + CHNaO3 (baking soda) = Na2CO3 + H2O (sodium carbonate + water)
So, when your recipe calls for 54g waterfree sodium carbonate that corresponds to 64,8g monohydrated
(1,2x), to be mixed in water, we could just as well use 21g lye and 44g baking soda.
Sodium bicarbonate as baking soda can be found in any supermarket and lye is sold as sewage cleaning
or as a strong alkaline cleaning agent to be used before painting things like old furniture. (Do not get
strong mixtures of caustic soda on your skin!)
Yet another, slightly expensive way to get sodium carbonate is to fry baking soda in a tough stainless
pan, really fry on intense heat. It will steam off carbon dioxide and when all gases are gone you will
have sodium carbonate left in the pan, but the pan wont look nice, not the surroundings either if there is
no lid on the pan.