The Beer Soap Volcano

This is a story about soapmaking.

Back in 2011, I was lucky enough to get a stall at Stockbridge Market in Edinburgh, which was held every Sunday.

One day, a very interesting, eccentric, wild-haired and obviously posh gentleman approached me with six bottles of dark beer and asked if I could make Beer Soap with it. It turns out he produced a very nice dark beer amongst many other interesting products.

I said, “Yes of course”, and the next day I set about learning how to make Beer Soap. I’d read about pouring the beer into a bucket and leaving it for a couple of days to allow all the bubbles to disappear, and the instructions were quite clear on this, so this is exactly what I did.

After three days, I checked the beer and saw that it appeared to be very flat and just to be extra careful, I gave the bucket a good shake and sure enough, no bubbles.

The next part of the soapmaking process was mixing the lye solution and allowing it to cool down to below 30 degrees, so again, this is what I did.

The mixing of the beer/lye solution, with a bit of added honey seemed to go well and now it was time to add the melted oils, which I’d prepared earlier, into the lye solution.

I poured it in and within five seconds, a greenish foam started to appear and “Grow” within the bucket. I stood and watched it growing larger and faster within the bucket until it rose like a column, two feet high until it spilled over the edge on to the floor. All I could do was stand and watch as the reaction continued.

I didn’t even try to stop it as I knew that chemistry and physics had taken over the moment, and all I could think of was to get out my phone and video it. The reaction continued for quite a while and all I had to show for the beer soap was a very soaked concrete floor, which stank of beer for weeks and left a permanent stain

Apparently, what I’d witnessed is called “Volcanoing” and I’ve never to this day, attempted to make beer soap again.

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