Coming over to the lard side

[dillsandwitch]

Okay so I bit the bullet and bought some of the $4.50 for 250gm blocks :S of lard from Coles so I can see what all this hype about Lard soaps is.

I was going to try this recipe. Anyone please adjust any of my numbers if you think it would be better. Hopefully I will get a chance to give this a go on the weekend. I was planing on leaving it un-coloured and un-fragranced and maybe use coconut milk in a 50% replacement for water.

65 % Lard
20% olive
10 % CO
5% castor

TIA
Dill

 

[Sonya-m]

You'll love lard soap!!

My favourite recipe is

75% lard
20% CO
5% castor

But your recipe should be lovely too

 

[sudsy_kiwi]

I love lard! And tallow. I use them in various lotions and skincare products as well as soaps. The best part is, my girlfriend has a small farm with organically raised sheepses, and I know an organic pig farmer...so I get lovely organic raw fat to render into my very own blocks of lard & tallow. Triple-rendered into nice creamy, smooth, ivory-white blocks 8)

 

[Arthur Dent]

65 % Lard
20% olive
10 % CO
5% castor

That's very close to a recipe I used recently. It makes a great soap.

 

[Susie]

I have used every percentage of lard from 40-90. That recipe is a happy medium.

Welcome to the lardy side!

 

[MorpheusPA]

Welcome to the lard side. We have cookies...with actual flavor.

That recipe looks great, and it's similar to my go-to recipe using lard. I think you'll make a great soap with that!

 

[aprice522]

Have recently done the lardy thing too. However, I am only at 3 weeks and am about to break into them to check it out. I normally try to do a plain bar without additives so I can compare and see what the additives add in comparision, but I just couldn't wait. I did milk honey oatmeal for my lard. Maybe tonight I will bust out the first wood mold (created diy by DH) and do a basic so I can compare...in 4 weeks...

OH...maybe I will try out the new colors I have just gotten--that way I can do plain soap but with *Something* new! HMMMM...now what color and what scent... ???

I hate the wait.

 

[skayc1]

I'll be making my first lard soap today, only without the Coconut oil, a friend with an allergy to coconut oil asked me to make a recipe without it, so i ended up creating a lard soap recipe without the coconut.

 

[Arthur Dent]

I made my last high lard batch without coconut oil, used 1Tbspn sugar PPO. I really like it.

 

[Sonya-m]

I've made lard soap tonight using the recipe I gave above. I like to make high lard soaps for many reasons. When I first started to soap I used a high % of lard as it's cheap so figured if it went wrong it hadn't cost me too much. But after trying my first lard soap I fell in love with its creamy lather. Plus it's pretty slow moving so great for swirling

 

[not_ally]

Dill, I was thinking about your lard costs when you posted on that other thread about finding them there, are you close to an urban area w/a Hispanic population? It is used to cook a lot in hispanic/latino recipes, it might be that you find it most readily and most cheaply there. I know when I need something Asian-y (I do a lot in cooking) the range of ingredients are always better and costs lower when I go to a place where I can count on demand being high. Lard is really easy for me to find b/c my neighborhood is mostly Mexican.

 

[dillsandwitch]

You know NA i have no idea if there are any shops/markets that cater to hispanic/latino customers near here. Will have to do some investigating.

 

[dillsandwitch]

Well I had a go at the lard soap. I used a slight different recipe than planned. I used:
70% Lard
15% Olive
10% Coconut
5% Castor

Man was it piggy smelling. I wasn't going to use any FO but then decided to as I just couldn't get past that piggy smell. I even made sure when melting the lard that I did it slowly over a really low heat. Erthghth. Hopefully it doesnt come through after cure

 

[TeresaT]

Welcome to the Lard Side! Once you try da fat, you will never go back! Praise the lard and pass the lye!

 

[dillsandwitch]

yeah im not so sure about that Teresa, just the smell coming from the melted lard and then the batter was enough to put me off of lard soaps. Either that or only make them once in a while sorta soaps. I have never had any odd smells from the tallow I use and I do like those soaps. I really really hope that the piggy smell isnt there in the cured soaps. I hate throwing soap out

 

[Susie]

Use an EO or FO to cover that smell if your nose is as sensitive as mine. I LOVE lard, I just do not love the smell.

 

[nsmar4211]

I was concerned about the piggy smell myself. I did find that if you don't heat the lard too long or overheat it is not as strong. Low and slow may have given it time to develop piggy... I do mine in the micro, in short bursts, until almost all of it is melted. I would guess, 20% isn't melted. The heat from the already melted lard will melt the rest of it (usually as I'm carrying it over to be mixed).

It does fade substantially in the finished soap, although I swear I can still smell it. My "testers" (aka friends) have not detected it yet in the unscented bars, and I'm up to about 8 different noses. Even when I *insisted* it smells like lard , they said nope. The bars with FO I do not smell a difference in the final smell between my coconut oil bars and the lard based bars.

Give it a month before making up your mind .

 

[dosco]

I've made several soaps with lard and my observation is that if the soap is unscented, a mild lard/pig smell will come through.

I am not a super taster or super smeller (I'd guess I'm 60% of the way to a super smeller) but I can sense a small amount of funk in the unscented stuff.

The batches with scent ... no funk that I can detect.

-Dave

 

[Susie]

I don't even melt my lard before adding the lye water (heat transfer method), and I can smell it in the finished product unless I use EOs. I can even smell it in my laundry after using 0.5 oz grated bar soap to a 2 lb oil batch of liquid laundry soap, even when I did not know it was lardy bar soap I grated up. I had to make a batch of 100% CO bar soap just for grating for liquid laundry soap kick starter. Some people simply have more sensitive noses to certain smells than others.

 

[Sonya-m]

I wonder if there is something different about our lard in the UK? I can smell it during melting but not at all once mixed with my lye water?