Where to obtain food grade lye

Hi

Where can this be obtained? I have heard third hand, and I am somewhat skeptical, of people buying lye intended for plumbing. Just cannot accept the idea of buying Drano for the kitchen.

Lye is used in making lutefisk, pretzels* and olives.

*Yes, I have seen people using baking soda solutions instead of lye.

Regards,

Food grade lye is sold on line at Amazon.com.

I have not purchased nor do I work with food grade lye.
I do have a Chemistry and Industrial Solvent background/experience and based on that, I would have rubber gloves and clothing suitable for chemical handling, Industrial eye protection, breathing protection and would work under a hood.
Not worth it for me to make olives etc.
Be careful and do diligent research before embarking on your projects. It may well be that one can handle food grade lye successfully but it is quite a potent chemical.-Dick
Update: did some quick research on Amazon and I see both liquid and beads for sale. Be aware that adding water to lye is an exothermic process and can result in high temperatures if not done correctly.

Cathy2, did you know notice my post in another thread that Woodman's carries frozen lutefisk? It's in the frozen seafood section along with whitefish. Missed the price and forgot to look again last Saturday.

LikestoEatout wrote:Cathy2, did you know notice my post in another thread that Woodman's carries frozen lutefisk? It's in the frozen seafood section along with whitefish. Missed the price and forgot to look again last Saturday.

Hi,

I did and I might. I have a speaker scheduled for December 10th talking about Lutefisk. I am kicking tires on doing this, then may buy it at Woodmans or IKEA. I'll probably buy whichever one is cheaper and convenient to get to.

Thanks to everyone on tips to check the internet.

Regards,

I was just reading this guide on curing olives: http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/8267.pdf They suggested contacting the University of California Extension offices for sources of lye.

This might be an enlightening conversation. It may be stating food-grade is an overstatement. Just get the chemical, period.

Regards,

Would lye water work for you? I know most asian stores carry it as it's used in filipino cooking.

Hi,

I'm going to ask around about this lye water. I never heard of it.

Meanwhile if someone has some experience with it, please chirp away!

Regards,

According to UCLA Davis(at least on olives), you just head to the plumbing section of the hardware store, no need for "food-grade" lye as long as it is 100% lye.

I found it at Menard's with the other drain cleaners/drain openers. There were several, but this was 100% lye. Nothing else added.

Hi Cathy- Are you sure you want to make your own lukefisk? My mother was born in Sweden, and my grandmother was a wonderful cook, and she never made her own lukefisk, and she fixed a lot of lutefisk dinners. I am not sure if Ikea carries lutefisk. I am going to be in Schaumberg this weekend, and so if I go in Ikea, I will see if they have lukefisk.

Erickson's deli on Clark street in Andersonville, I am sure will have bags of frozen lukefisk when you need it. They were temporarily closed because of a family emergency last month, but hopefully they are back open again. The owners are super nice, and they have wonderful potato sausage too. I know even one of the whole foods in New Orleans had lukefisk at Christmastime a few years ago, and this really surprised me.

It is just a whole lot easier to buy bags of frozen lutefisk. Hope this helps, Nancy

pairs4life wrote:According to UCLA Davis(at least on olives), you just head to the plumbing section of the hardware store, no need for "food-grade" lye as long as it is 100% lye.

I found it at Menard's in with the other drain cleaners/drain openers. There were several, but this was 100% lye. Nothing else added.

I would never use Industrial Grade products in the preparation of consumable items.
Industrial Grade products can be sourced from anywhere and do not have to account for contaminates that may be harmful to individuals. Just because the article is published by UCLA doesn't mean that it contains correct information.
The article itself is very good and convinces me that curing olives is not something I want to try again.-Dick

Dick,

Have you lye cured olives? What was the taste and texture outcome? I'm sure I have had lye cured, would these be like those tasteless jumbo olives used more often than not?

I am thinking of brining a small batch of olives to see if I even like them.

NFriday - I don't need a lot of lutefisk, it would be a tasting portion only. I am more curious about the process.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Dick,

Have you lye cured olives? What was the taste and texture outcome? I'm sure I have had lye cured, would these be like those tasteless jumbo olives used more often than not?

I am thinking of brining a small batch of olives to see if I even like them.

NFriday - I don't need a lot of lutefisk, it would be a tasting portion only. I am more curious about the process.

Regards,

Cathy,

I don't know if you saw my friend Lee's response over on Facebook about this, but I suspect many commercial olives are cured via lye. The best olives I ever tasted, were last year, and they were cured by a friend with lye. They were green olives, as suggested by UCLA Davis, not black/Mission style olives.

With a supply of fresh olives handy and an aversion to the use of NaOH or lye, I tried the salt cure method. I did not have Harsch crocks at that time so the inevitable scum developed and then mold and then disposal, we did get some indication we were headed in the right direction from taste as we went along but then, all in all, I decided that I could purchase cured olives easier than I could make them!
The same source again has some very nice looking fresh olives but both crocks are currently fermenting two types of peppers, one with tabsaco peppers and one a blend of jalapeno and habenero and they have aged for a year and need to be bottled.
These peppers were raised for me by a local farmer with the admonishment that i had to pick them. So I have about 20l of mash ready for bottling. We did a trial batch the year before of the jalapeno/habenero mix and it turned out quite well.-Dick

budrichard wrote:I did not have Harsch crocks at that time

I want to hear more about your pepper sauce. Did you score a deal on the crocks? I want one, but it feels like more specialized equipment that is not inexpensive. Then again I did score The Last Course {that I also thought was prohibitive for a cookbook on desserts) by asking for gift cards to amazon for my birthday so I guess when folks ask what I want for my birthday, Christmas, Wedding Anniversary, and Ayammi-ha I should say the following:

Harsch crocks
Ultomato Cages
Copper Preserving Pan
Large Cherry Pitter
Large Crock Pot

That way I mix the not terribly expensive with the expensive, this sounds like wedding registries all over again.

"Did you score a deal on the crocks? "

No deal, they simply are the best with a water seal to allow carbonation to escape but doesn't allow unwanted yeast and mold to enter.-Dick

Cathy2 wrote:Dick,

Have you lye cured olives? What was the taste and texture outcome? I'm sure I have had lye cured, would these be like those tasteless jumbo olives used more often than not?

I am thinking of brining a small batch of olives to see if I even like them.

NFriday - I don't need a lot of lutefisk, it would be a tasting portion only. I am more curious about the process.

Regards,

Coincidentally, there's an article on the advantages of a lye bath for pretzel-making in the L.A. Times today:

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la ... 1461.story

And if my opinion counts for anything, make the lutefisk, make pretzels and then throw out the lutefisk and eat the pretzels.

spinynorman99 wrote:And if my opinion counts for anything, make the lutefisk, make pretzels and then throw out the lutefisk and eat the pretzels.

I don't plan to make a lot of lutefisk, enough for 30-40 tasting portions. I also may just buy it, too.

Pretzels and pretzel bread is definitely on the radar.

Regards,

What lye can do for you in the kitchen ...

Interesting article by Harold McGee: Achiving a distinct flavor without going to extremes.

Regards,

Funny I came across this - have been lobbying to buy some for making pretzels and curing olives. Hubby does sound like budrichards - he is a chemist by training and wonders why I would want to have something in the house that he needs skin/eye protection, plus hood, to use at work!

avontuur10 wrote:Funny I came across this - have been lobbying to buy some for making pretzels and curing olives. Hubby does sound like budrichards - he is a chemist by training and wonders why I would want to have something in the house that he needs skin/eye protection, plus hood, to use at work!

It's easy & I think Cathy2'would agree. I turned the exhaust on in the bathroom. Will eventually post but I'm definitely doing it again once the olives are ripe.

Why do it? The olives were better than many I'd had and I'm ready to tweak what I did.

I remember watching my great-aunt Mary make her own hominy. My grandmother asked her whether she used lye or wood ashes. I believe she used wood ash that time. Sadly, I have no idea how it was done. But I'll bet that with all the Hispanic grocery stores around, there must be some place that carries the fixins for homemade pozole. Which is also known as hominy. Any suggestions?

HI,

In a post I have not yet written, there will be a discussion on how to make lutefisk. In pursuit of this I learned what base compounds were used and by preference:

- Wood ashes and slaked lime

- Wash soda (sodium carbonate) and slaked lime

- Lye

For the lutefisk I made by scratch, I used wash soda and slaked lime. I would have used ashes, if I knew then how much was needed.

If you do a search for how to make hominy from scatch, there are lots of resources. If you want to use ashes, then use that in your query.

Please report back on how it worked out. I will be very interested.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote: I would have used ashes, if I knew then how much was needed.

Whaddya know....
Just happened to be reading Mexico's Feasts of Life by Patricia Quintana (Council Oak Books, Tulsa 1989), when I found her recipe for candied limes (stuffed with coconut) in which she explains how to prepare them with ash water:

"Combine 1 cup ashes from a wood fire with 3 quarts of water. Cover the limes with ash water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl of cold water. Change the water for four days. On the fifth day, bring the limes to a boil again and cook until tender (p.50)."

She goes on to explain how to candy them.

I'm intrigued by the ash water. Does it flavor the limes also? Just think of all the possibilities.......

HI,

It is terrific to get a ratio of ashes to water. It is probably better you have a hardwood ash over something with resin. For some purposes, slaked lime (aka canning lime) is mixed with the ashes.

It may not flavor them, but the presumed high pH will soften and perhaps removed the bitterness in the lime's skin.

When pairs4life and I seperately made olives last year, the fresh olive was inedible. Not only was it hard, it was very bitter. After processing in a high pH solution and rinsing many, many times, the olive was soft, pliable and mild flavored.

Probably the only down side of ashes will be the relative messiness.

If you proceed with the recipe, please report back your experiences. (I still have yet to do a blow by blow of my lutefisk preparation from last November)

Regards,

As I just explained in this post, and as explained in the recipe I linked to, you do not need to screw around with lye when making pretzels or bagels. Instead, bake baking soda for an hour at 250 degrees. Store in a covered contained and use as needed. Baking the baking soda increases the ph level to get close to the ph level of food grade lye, which means that you can get the dark exterior for pretzels and bagels that you are hoping for.