Chapter 402: Improvements and Innovations
In any case, up until now, adding fragrance to soap thus far had been accomplish by stirring crushed flowers or herbs into the raw lye. This worked, but in order to get a strong scent, large quantities of plants were needed, which wasn’t exactly cheap.
Fortunately, the method for extracting essential oils was among Lucas’ newly unlocked memories, so he immediately drew up some simple plans for distillation equipment and passed them along to Rebecca to experiment with.
Those experiments resulted in 4 large distilleries being installed next to the fat rendering stoves, producing batch after batch of essential oils based on whatever flowers and herbs were available in the local markets.
Fruit peels were also used quite frequently, as most people simply considered them waste and were happy to sell them to Joel for a few extra Coppers.
Unfortunately, since phase 1 of the factory was basically finished by this point, Lucas couldn’t implement more advanced techniques like hot-processing or liquid castile soaps as that would have required some significant re-designs.
There was, however, one improvement to the soap-making process that Lucas was able to implement without having to make any changes to the factory equipment or layout, the addition of salt.
After his most recent breakthrough, Lucas had not only managed to dig up much more information about the general process of soap-making, but he was also able to acquire some of the more fundamental chemistry knowledge about it as well.
Specifically, Lucas now understood exactly what the lye solution he was using was made up of.
Leaching wood-ash with water produced a solution of water and potassium hydroxide, a strong alkali that was highly caustic.
This was what Lucas had been using to produce all of his soaps thus far, and it had worked; however, with his newly unearthed knowledge, the young boy understood that there was actually a better option when it came to making hard bar soap.
Sodium hydroxide.
Soap bars made from potassium hydroxide tended to be softer and take longer to cure compared to ones made from sodium hydroxide.
That didn’t mean potassium hydroxide was useless; it was ideal for making things like liquid soaps and shampoos, but right now, Lucas’ entire focus was on producing bar soap.
In other words, switching to sodium hydroxide would make his work, and the work of the soap factory, much faster and easier.
Unfortunately, while Lucas knew sodium hydroxide was a better option, he didn’t actually know of a way to produce it, meaning he had no choice but to stick with his current recipe.
However, contained in his latest batch of inherited memories was a trick which could be used to help harden soap made from potassium hydroxide, the addition of a bit of sodium chloride, aka salt.
By simply adding roughly 7 grams of salt per kilogram of fat to the recipe, the soap would set faster and come out harder.
Thankfully, due to a number of mines in its territory, salt was actually quite cheap and abundant in the Rockwell Kingdom, making this addition both simple and virtually costless.
In the future, once he remembered how to produce or acquire sodium hydroxide and was able to make some better equipment, Lucas planned on switching to it and using a hot-process method to rapidly churn out bar soap from his factory.
At the same time, he would use potassium hydroxide to make liquid soaps and shampoos to expand his product line.
For now, though, cold-processed lye soap with a bit of salt would have to do.
Lucas wasn’t in a rush to make this change, mind you. Everyone in the new factory was still getting used to mass producing soap, so using the safer cold-process method until they had developed enough skill and process knowledge wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Of course, although it was called ’cold-processed’, the mixing of soap, salted lye, and essential oils still required all the components to be in a liquid state. So, after a night of settling, the purified fats were harvested from the water tanks and moved to the central part of the factory.
Here, it was weighed out carefully on large scales before being dumped into another set of 4 custom-built pots, these ones even bigger than the initial rendering pans at nearly 1,000-litres each.
The fats were then gently melted over small stoves, after which lye and scents were added in appropriate amounts.
It would normally have been necessary to have several people vigorously stir these pots for an extended period of time to ensure proper mixing took place, but not in the new soap factory.
It was incredibly difficult to forge, transport, and install such giant pots, but Rebecca had insisted on them being this massive for a very important reason, to accommodate the automatic stirrers.
The waterwheel powered stirrers were perhaps the most impressive part of the factory in Lucas’ opinion as they represented the first real step towards automation he had seen in the Rockwell Kingdom.
Little more than giant wooden paddles attached to a rough gear and axle assembly, these stirrers were so crude they only had 2 settings, on and off. There weren’t even different speed settings despite how easily that could have been achieved with a few extra gears.
Still, these clunky stirrers were miracle machines in everyone’s opinion. Even if they jammed frequently, they still saved countless hours of hard manual labour, so no one complained about constantly having to fix them.
Best of all, this huge leap forward in manufacturing technology wasn’t even Lucas’ idea; it was the brainchild of a group of young craftsmen from Redwood Town who had participated in some of his earlier projects.
All of Lucas’ wild ideas had seemingly inspired them to innovate and experiment, ultimately culminating in these primitive machines.
Needless to say, when Lucas learned about this, he had rewarded these craftsmen handsomely and encouraged them to keep trying new thing whenever possible while also giving a big bonus to Rebecca for being bold enough to actually use this never-before-seen technology.
Lucas then made a point to encourage everyone working for him to continue looking for new and better ways of doing things. Even if these new methods weren’t practical or cost-effective at first, he cared more about changing people’s mindsets and making progress than pinching a few Coppers here and there.
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"We’ve been operating full-time for the past 18 days now and have roughly 40,000 bars of soap current curing in the factory’s warehouse," Rebecca concluded her report.
"It seems everything here is going according to plan. No, better than planned," Lucas commented with great satisfaction after finishing the tour of the new soap factory.
"It wouldn’t have been possible without everyone’s help and cooperation," Rebecca said humbly.
"Good partners and dedicated workers are certainly crucial elements to success, but don’t underestimate how important leadership is," Lucas shook his head and smiled up at the young woman, "You’ve exceeded all of my expectations, Rebecca. You and Joel both."
"Thank you, Boss Lucas," Rebecca smiled and bowed politely.