Trying Lard on soap. Starting from scratch

After Susie's prompt for trying a recipe with lard, I started looking for butchers that can give me some. I found out that my local butcher can give me and he already did, but it is only back-fat.

I also called another butcher boutique that has its own Certified Organic Farm, and they might be able to give me leaf lard to render. I will know this the next days.

So I will show here my ever first attempt to make Susie's recipe, starting from the rendering of lard.

Firstly I cut any meat and skin that is left on the fat so as to have pure fat, and afterwards I start cutting in small pieces and then putting it in the fridge:









This pure fat was a total of 750gr and hoping that when I melt it (in the following messages) I will have at least ~350gr so I as I can cook one normal (~8 soap bars) batch of soap (I do CPOP, but I like saying "cook" as I'm influenced by Breaking Bad ! ).

I'm thinking of having this thread to show all the way from scratch to make a soap bar with lard, so as anyone can ask or give feedback in every step until the final product.

In this thread I will also show my attempt with leaf fat (or suet fat, or as we locally call it royal fat), if I have the luck to obtain some.

Nikos

If you can get hold of a mincing machine, it will make it a whole lot better - with me, it took ages for the chunks to melt

Looks like lovely fat, though

Well in order to have this fat of 750gr in little pieces, it took me a little over an hour, without being in a hurry...

So for sure a mincing machine will do the job quicker as my butcher didn't want to have his machine stuck with this fat when I asked him if he could cut it through it.

I think that I will love my lard soap in the end even if I make a not so good one, after having spend so much time for it. To be honest I already feel that I like it! :smile:

Hi I just made my first lard soap it's really hard bar and really white - it's not brilliant but I put lavender in it and it does look quite pretty.
I made the mistake of spraying the mould and it put a yellow/brown marks on it which was a shame but hey Ho - I'm sure Jesse didn't get his first cook right with chilli P.
I would love to see some pictures of the finished soap.

So after a few days I managed to render the pig's fatback. This is my first ever render of lard and I did follow advices gathered from the internet (forums - youtube).

I poured some water in a saucepan along with the fat and set the fire to very low.



As you can see the temperature went up to around 100ºC (210ºF) although the hot plate was set to the lowest temperature. I was steering every 10-20 minutes for about 2 hours and I thought it was time to change the saucepan as I saw that they were some fat stuck on the bottom of the pan, and I was afraid of odorizing the final lard with pig smell.I used a coffee filter for straining the liquid. At that point there was no pig smell at the lard.



I continued the render with adding a bit of water again in a new pan and steering every now and then for another 1 hour till the fat got a yellowish color. I then strained it again firstly with a kitchen paper and then with a coffee filter. This time the pig smell was a bit more intense, so I stopped the whole process.



I managed to create ~400gr of lard while with Susie's recipe I need around 330gr for a 600gr batch of total oils (around 8 bar soaps).

My concern now is about the tiny pig smell that the lard has. For my nose it's acceptable, but for my wife who doesn't like it at all, she thinks that it is very intense. I have also read from many people that this odor isn't available at the soap after saponification, but others say that it still remains.

I'm also thinking of going through the cleaning it with baking soda so as to see if I can remove more this smell.

I also came across this interesting article that explains how baking soda is able to deodorize and also the same can happen with NaOH.

Given this explanation, I think [FONT=MathJax_Main]NaOH[/FONT] should obviously also work well for deodorizing in case the smell is caused by acids. The problem would be that smells caused by basic compounds are left untouched.

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Maybe DeeAnna can enlighten us more on this matter.

I also noticed that after leaving lard outside the house with a kitchen paper on top, the next day the piggy smell was even a little less intense.



The good news is that I also obtained ~1kg of leaf lard from the Organic Farm, and I will do once again the procedure so as to see if I can produce an odorless lard.

Nikos

I don't know how home rendered lard smells compared to store bought but I can smell piggy in the lard I buy. If I use a lot of lard and leave it unscented, I can still smelly piggy. I can't stand it and it doesn't fade, at least not to my nose. The scent does cover easily with FO though, even my 80% lard soaps don't smelly piggy if scented.

I have a really sensitive nose, also. I can smell lard in any soap that is unscented. However, it does not take much EO or FO to cover that up. Really. I would never be able to tolerate it if it did not.

That is beautiful lard, though. You did a great job rendering!

Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't look like you used water? If not, melt the lard down with some water - probably about 1:1 ratio - strain it, then let it seperate. the fat will float to the top and the water and impurities will be on the bottom. after it seperates, put it in the fridge and you'll be able to lift out a nice, firm fat cake.

I haven't rendered any lard myself, but the lard I get from Soaper's Choice makes for a lovely bath soap along with some olive and coconut.

dixiedragon said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't look like you used water? If not, melt the lard down with some water - probably about 1:1 ratio - strain it, then let it seperate. the fat will float to the top and the water and impurities will be on the bottom. after it seperates, put it in the fridge and you'll be able to lift out a nice, firm fat cake.

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As I stated in my previous message:

I poured some water in a saucepan along with the fat and set the fire to very low.

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I did use some water but not much. This small portion of water helps in melting the first fats without being burned and then by the time that the water will evaporate, the liquid fat will take water's place to melt the remaining unmelted fats.

Yesterday I decided to melt the lard that I had left outside the house, to see if the pig smell was indeed gone, and while the lard was in room temperature it didn't have any special odor. But by the time I melt it with bain marie, the pig smell just came back to its initial tenseness!

So I decided to do the baking soda bath for 30 min in low temperature. I purred water at around 1:1 ratio, totally dissolved ~1 Tbsp baking soda to water prior warming the water and inserting lard, and by the time I inserted lard, million of bubbles started to appear! After 30 min of steering I put the saucepan outside the house, and after a few hours inside the fridge.



Tonight I will see how intense the smell is, after aborting the water underneath the lard disc.

As far as it concerns scents, I haven't tried at all FO or EO, as I need more time in reading the aroma side of CP soap...

Nikos

So after a day in the fridge, I cut the lard disk (it is not very hard, not just like coconut oil but more like a soft butter) and cleaned the bottom of the disk with a knife, that had a bit creamier surface along with some crystals that were maybe caused by baking soda (or it was baking soda).

I then melt it in bain marie and strained it so as to clean it of those crystals.



Generally I have noted that when lard is at room temperature it doesn't smell much and when it is warm the pig smell just arises.

Now, after one clean with baking soda, in room temperature I hardly smell any piggy odor, at a point that I won't understand that there is something under my nose. When I warm it up then little piggy odor is there. For sure the piggy smell has dropped its intense. I also lost around 30gr of lard reaching around 370gr still enough for my recipe that needs 330gr. (The other 40gr will try them in making omelette to see its flavor...)

My recipe will be Castor 5%, OO 15%, PKO 25% (as I'm out of CO), Lard 55%. I changed a bit Susie's recipe because I wanted to tweak the final properties of the soap by Soapcalc's reference. Additives will be salt, sugar, oatmeal flour, sodium citrate, silk fibers.

So I'm ready to make my first lard soap this weekend!

Nikos

If you are increasing the PKO for hardness, you need not worry. Lard makes good hard soap. If you are increasing it for "cleansing", you can clean fine with 0 cleansing. I am worried that it might be a bit more drying with that much PKO.

I never use water when rendering lard or tallow, I dry render in a cast iron enameled pot over low heat and pour through two grades of cheesecloth. As for the 'piggy' smell, make certain your lard doesn't get too hot as it's rendered. I have never had a piggy smell come through in any of my soaps, and I use lard a lot. Also best to grind it thoroughly as mentioned, you can usually find a good hand driven meat grinder from second hand stores at a minimum, I bought an inexpensive dedicated electric grinder for my rendering needs.

Susie said:

If you are increasing the PKO for hardness, you need not worry. Lard makes good hard soap. If you are increasing it for "cleansing", you can clean fine with 0 cleansing. I am worried that it might be a bit more drying with that much PKO.

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Well as I have already tested my previous soaps that have 30% CO (and one with 15% CO and 15% PKO) and I don't feel my skin dry. The tiny dry feeling that I experience may arise from my hard water, because I have also tried my Castile soap (100% OO) with almost the same feeling. So for some reason I don't feel the need to use 20% of those oils, but for sure I will try it someday.

reinbeau said:

Also best to grind it thoroughly as mentioned, you can usually find a good hand driven meat grinder from second hand stores at a minimum, I bought an inexpensive dedicated electric grinder for my rendering needs.

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I have also read another trick that you can freeze the unmelted lard and you can cut it through a blender easily in very small pieces. I will for sure try this with my leaf lard that I have.

Nikos

Fantastic, you are going to love lard soap , dreamy,creamy lather)

Don't freeze it hard or you will burn out your grinder motor (or arm)! Just freeze to firmness.

So Saturday night was the lard-soapmaking time. And for the fact that I did use some lard in order to cook an omelette the previous days along with the fact that I might have not mesured properly the total weight of my available lard, all that I had was 315gr instead of 330gr that the recipe needed! And I did realize this by the time I was mixing all my oils in the plastic container.

So I had to open the soapcalc.net, while the other oils where melting, to recalculate the recipe adding more OO along with altering NaOH amount with 0.1gr less! :shifty: :

Lard 52.5%, PKO 25%, OO 17,5%, Castor 5%, SF 5%

By the time PKO was almost melted, I couldn't smell any piggy odor even though oils were warm (~45ºC) as the other oils apart from lard were contributing to the final odor! So I realized that if lard has from little to no piggy smell at room temperature (solid) then it is safe for my nose to make an un-piggysmell soap bar without the use of any FO or EO. By the time I inserted the 3% oatmeal flour in the oils, then a mildy smell of oatmeal was added to the final scent.

But I decided to make two versions splitting the batch in two, one unscent and one with 0.1% levander EO (L).



At this batch I did use for the first time a stainless steel container for mixing my 50% LYE solution and the rest of the warm water (33% LYE Concentration) that salt 2%, Sugar 2% and Sodium Citrate 3% were diluted.
The time that was needed for the LYE to cool down was very quick! It took around 15 min to reach ~28ºC from ~55ºC, in contrast with a plastic container that was needed almost twice this time. And I only did use cold taped water without any ice cubs as I did use for the plastic container.
It is for the stainless steel that helps temperature to be transferred more easily. I' ve read this tip at Anne Watson's book (smart soapmaking - costs 0.01E at google books!)

I CPOP it for 30 min @ 60ºC and when it fully gelled I closed the oven, and I left it outside the house for ~8 hour when it was hard enough to cut it.




So I have 4 bars with Lavender EO (wavy cut) and 4 bars unscented (straight cut). My wife's nose assured me that the soap without the EO does not smell piggy at all, and it reminds her of soaps that her father was using many years ago.




So I have to wait for 3 and more weeks to try it! Next will be with leaf lard, and maybe play a little with other liquids instead of water.

Have you ever tried Susie's Lard recipe with Aloe Vera, beer or milk? Or Lard is better with using only water as the liquid?

Nikos

Lard is pretty awesome however it is used - that includes soap and non-soap uses

I have used it with: cow's milk, cow's heavy cream, goat's milk, coconut milk.

I find that the milks make no appreciable difference to anyone in my family, so I stopped bothering. Other people have different results, and LOVE their milk soaps. So try it and make up your own mind. That is the great thing about making your own soap...it is YOUR own soap.

What great soaps! You are going to love them

Ive made lard soap with beer as the liquid. Let the beer go flat, and for the amount of liquid needed (full water recipe), half was frozen beer mixed with the lye and half was a cooked down beer syrup added after trace. It was a really hoppy beer, and the soap retained the fragrance.