my soap is thicker than pumpkin puree

[IrishLass]

Hah, you are a shrimp, I knew it! You should console yourself w/the fact that you have pretty feet, mine are not.

Compared to hobbit feet, all feet are pretty. If you don't have hobbit feet, then I'm sure yours are prettier than you think!

Also, you know, lard. I was going to try and be insightful. But Just Lard

No further words need to be said.


IrishLass

 

[Susie]

LOL, no one can be my mini-me, either! I am only 5'3"(on a good day). But it is not me that wins, it is the lard. One oil to rule them all. Preciousss, my preciousss...

 

[not_ally]

Susie, apparently you are a giant among not so much giants I know what you mean about crooning to the lard, though. After I lug my 50 lb boxes up the steps I look at them and pat them fondly and possessively. OK, this might be a problem.

 

[DeeAnna]

I rendered my first batch of hog fat a few weeks ago. I really like soap made with store boughten lard ... but it ain't got nuthin on the two batches of soap I made with the home rendered stuff!

At least that's what I tell myself. :wink:

 

[Susie]

I will never willingly render fat again. I may have to to get tallow, but not willingly. It is as my mother used to say, "Too much sugar for a dime." I love my store bought beautiful lard, and will find some online source of tallow ASAP. I found out how nicely it plays with lard, and I may have to do that again.

 

[DeeAnna]

My friend Renae gave me some suet recently when she heard I had rendered lard. I haven't got the suet rendered yet but I'm looking forward to doing that and trying tallow in soap. Given I have a couple of tried and true recipes w high percentages of lard, would you suggest I replace some of the lard w tallow? And by how much ... a quarter ... third ... half?

 

[Susie]

I like the tallow soaps, but I like the tallow/lard soaps best. I used this recipe for the best one:

Lard 47.5%
Tallow 47.5%
Castor Oil 5%
Sugar 1 T PPO
Superfat 5%

I thought I would keep it just the animal fats so that I knew exactly which oils gave which properties to that soap. I may never use CO or OO again, LOL.

I may have to play with that recipe a bit to tweak it, but it really is amazing.

 

[DeeAnna]

Thanks, Susie. I put your recipe into my soap calculator and I like how it looks. Thank you for sharing!

I also learned from your recipe that tallow adds a dab of lauric and myristic acids to the recipe, which are the fatty acids that CO provides. I didn't realize that tallow had these fatty acids -- I have never played with tallow recipes before today, since I've never had any tallow to try until Renae's gift.

Tallow also shifts the balance of palmitic-stearic-oleic toward more stearic and less palmitic and oleic. That would make a harder, less lathery bar -- perhaps to a fault. I can see now why many recipes with tallow often have it mixed with a goodly % of lard and/or other low-stearic fats.

 

[rparrny]

For those who hate to render fat, I have two tips for you that might change your mind.
1. Get your butcher to grind the fat for you like you would grind chop meat. If you have a meat grinder you can do it yourself. This will give you the most rendered fat for your buck.
2. Put your ground up fat in a large crockpot before you go to bed...when you wake up the fat will be rendered and you only need to strain it out.

I strain several times through larger and then finer sieves, then finally through muslin...if it has cooled even a little, heat up for the muslin strain so you don't waste a lot in the cloth.

Hope this changes your mind!

 

[clownking99]

first successful batch of soap made! thanks so much to obsidian for the recipe and the step by steps
will post pics tomorrow once the bars harden
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search...lla&fr=yhs-mozilla-002&p=successful&fr2=12642

 

[Obsidian]

What ever happened to your first batch? Did cooking it help at all?

 

[clownking99]

the first batch didnt melt in the crockpot
just sorta softened up like a extra thick mashed potatoes. my wife kept stirring it together and wound up keeping it ! i told her to pitch the batch but she refuses. luckily it is keeping the room smelling nice!
should i secretly discard of it? im sort of worried it could be damaging to our skin?

 

[Obsidian]

That sounds like normal rebatch. I would zap test it just to be sure but its probably fine.

 

[clownking99]

Do i zap test in a month or now?
Btw this morning i took my soap out of the molds
And the soap was still soft like butter? Is this normal? Will it harden? How long does it usually take? Thanks again!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The zap test tells you when all the lye has gone (saponification is finished) so it shouldn't zap after 72 hours at the most usually. If you test then and get a zap, there could well be something amiss

 

[Obsidian]

I usually wait a week after cutting to zap test. Soap can sometimes take a day or two to completely harden, just give it more time. When I make that recipe I can usually unmold and cut in about 8 hours but I use less water which will make it set up faster.
What did you use for a mold?

 

[clownking99]

Used a silicone mold
And also used a plastic mold

 

[clownking99]

Heres what my first bar looks like

 

[Obsidian]

Looks great, good job! I like the lettering, neat idea.

 

[clownking99]

Obsidian heres some soap i made with the red palm oil! 5%