Is food grade lye good enough for STB? SWIM was unable to find lye in his local area so he had to find a place online and most places he has found have Technical Grade or Food Grade Lye. There is one place that sells Lye but it says Sodium Hydroxide- 96% to 100%, Water (from environmental humidity)- balance of 100%. Should SWIM get it from the technical/food grade place or the other one?

Food grade would be the best, but it is not necessary. Onlinescience mall has NaOH and other harder to find tech/reagent grade chems in hobby size amounts and are avaliable to the public.

Roebics brand drain cleaner is 100% NaOH. It can be found at Lowe s. 100% NaOH can also be found online, but DO NOT order more than you need. Buying lye in large amounts raises red flags as it is used in methamphetamine production. Keep purchases of it small.

None of the lye will make it into your final product. Doing a wash of your naphtha before freeze precipitating will remove any that might have come over (though this has been hotly debated). A recrystalization will also help remove impurities.

Soap- making shops have it also. They sell it by the lb. You do not need that much, it will last a while.

I get mine at E-bay. They sell it there pretty cheap for soap making purposes.

Here in the South East they have pulled it from ALL the shelves. You can't find it at Lowes/HomeDepot, CVS/Walgreens, or any grocery store chains that I used to get it at. Its a real bummer but it really is cheaper to buy it in bulk and you can at least get food grade quality as well.

I got my lye from eBay. 100%.

Lowes stopped carrying the Roebic Crystal Drain Opener a while ago, although, Ace Hardware still sells some. It's called Rooto and is sold by the 1/2 lb.

This is what I've been using aswell. It's like $4.99 per bottle and there are two Aces in town so I can buy one from each. works out pretty well.

Just did my first extraction using Rooto's lye. Use the exact same as you would liquid Lye.