A late introduction ...

[big_onion]

Well, I jumped the gun and went right into other forums before being polite and introducing myself.

I'm from South Jersey, but have been in New Orleans for the past 10 years. I work for a university here doing budget oversight (and if you live in Louisiana or nearby, you probably have an idea of how crappy things have been for higher education and budgets!). I'm also a lifetime student -- I have my undergrad/grad in music composition and am almost finished a master's in public administration.

We have a ton of animals ... 3 cats, 3 Shetland sheepdogs, a yorkie, an American Bulldog, and 8 ducks (although we have more in the incubator, so that'll change in a week!). Besides work, school, and the zoo of animals we have, I volunteer with a local pit bull advocacy/educational organization. I like to keep busy. Hehe.

I love making things. We make our own pet food. We grow as much as we can in the garden. I cure my own meat, make my own sausage. It's been awhile, but I used to brew a lot of beer. Liquer making is pretty fun, too (you can't beat homemade limoncello!).

I got into soap making because we were getting all of these lamb ribs for dog food that had a ridiculous amount of fat on them. It rendered down pretty clean, and while I love it for cooking I thought it'd be interesting to try my hand at soap.

So far I've done two batches, mostly with a lot of help from information on here and from some of you! I'll be doing my third tonight, and then trying a shaving soap this weekend when my order of oils and clay comes in!

As a nerd by nature, I love the science part of soap making. Saponification! How freaking awesome is that? Oils + lye = soap!

(Now if I can only get my friends to stop joking about whether or not my soap is the "Fight Club recipe" ...)

[EDIT: Typos, etc.]

 

[MrsFusion]

Hello Big Onion,

Welcome to the soap making forum! This place is a wealth of info!!! Take time to read all the old threads and use the search option as well. I have learned SO MUCH here.....I love it!!!

I look forward to seeing your first soaping experience! I haven't rendered my own..I'm sure that is a major task in it's own...good luck my friend!

 

[big_onion]

My batch was a somewhat failure. I tried HP in the oven, and waaaay overcooked it. It didn't look like it was done, but apparently it was. I tried to mill it/rebatch it, but I totally failed at that. I still have a giant bag of it in the closet (over 2 lbs). .. I'll drag it out some day. My second batch came out much, much better. I used a crockpot for that!

I made mention in a post elsewhere, but I've found with tallow that you probably don't want to superfat or use a lye discount. Every once in awhile we'll get a smell of meat in the shower that lasts for a couple of days. It doesn't linger on the skin (although if it did, I certainly wouldn't mind smelling like lamb meat!) but it's still there and a little ... odd.

Batch tonight is avocado, tallow, olive, and coconut! Very excited. I'll snap some pics to share.

Rendering isn't so hard -- if you can freeze the fat, then grind it, it renders pretty quickly. A lot of people just dump the fat in a pot and turn it on, but I use the method where you use fat and water. Bring it up to a boil and let it simmer, and the fat eventually melts. Skim it into a bowl, pop it in the fridge, and the next day you can pull the layer of fat off the top of the bowl. I run it through some cheese cloth just to make sure there's no meat pieces in there, but it's pretty clean after that.

And you don't need to use it for just soap, let me tell you: french fries done in lamb fat are a GODSEND. Hehe.

 

[Sunny]

Hey, big onion! Love your screen name!

You'll find a ton of info here and maybe your next batch will be more successful

Welcome!!!

 

[soapbuddy]

Welcome!