Introduction and bacon grease question.

[Quilter99755]

It may surprise you but I was 60 years old when I made my first batch of soap in 2003.

My journey has been very similar....I didn't start until around 2012, when I was 70. My learning curve was pretty gradual at first, until I got onto this site and unlearned some of the bad habits that I learned on the internet. I haven't looked back since!

 

[Douging]

First post might be a book and so feel free not to read it unless you just have too much time to kill.

I just made my first 5 small batches of soap. Except for my very first soap which was pure lard 38 percent water and 5% super fat I have made this:
14.2 ounce lard or bacon fat. I have made two of each and one is still in mold.
4 ounce coconut oil
1 ounce of castor oil
14 grams of sodium citrate
33 percent water.
So a total oil content of 19.2 ounces. 5% superfat.

Why 19.2 ounces? Cause that is how much old lard I had on hand with out going to the store and by accident it turned out to be the perfect amount to use a shoe box as a mold and get me six pretty uniform sized bars. I also played with these numbers on a soap caculator while trying to research a little also before I went to the store.

I tried to make cheap soap and it is still about $1.30 per bar when using all bought stuff.

I have been unmolding and cutting about 4 hours after the pour and made four of the five batches over the last two days. So only the lard one is cured for about eight days and I am thinking about using one for the heck of it.

Couriosity had me join. I got bees and a forum did help me and I built a band sawmill and could not have did it as well with out a forum and they seem to be value added endeavers. I do not know how serously I will make soap but have an inkling at this point that It might be like when I grew mushrooms, it was a fun winter but it is over now.

One observation is that lye some very bad to the bone stuff and I am not sure I am carefull enough in handling if. I was surprized by it.

I make the soap with distilled water but will use it with well water as I am a hick.

The thing that made me be more then just a browser of your forum for now is cause I wanted to ask two questions one of which, I will be able to answer in time though I still will not have a comparison to other soaps. That question is how is my mix going to perform with my hard water? The second questions is: If bacon fat is lard and lard is bacon fat, why would the bacon fat come out of the mold in the same amount of time so much softer then the bought grease?
If you made it this far, Thanks for reading it.
Cheers
gww

Bacon fat soap was the very first soap I ever made. My first batch was 100 percent beer and cleaned fat. I made a giant chunk of it and it was like a piece of cement, shattered when I cut it. But it was a great soap.
I now use rainwater instead of beer, 80% cleaned bacon fat, 15 % Coconut and 5 % castor oil.
Just made this so will wait a month, they are already out of the mould.
Are there any other bacon fat soap recipes that soapers make that are not 100% bacon fat?
Am I just wasting coconut and Castor and should I just stick to 100 % bacon fat?

 

[AliOop]

Bacon fat soap was the very first soap I ever made. My first batch was 100 percent beer and cleaned fat. I made a giant chunk of it and it was like a piece of cement, shattered when I cut it. But it was a great soap.
I now use rainwater instead of beer, 80% cleaned bacon fat, 15 % Coconut and 5 % castor oil.
Just made this so will wait a month, they are already out of the mould.
Are there any other bacon fat soap recipes that soapers make that are not 100% bacon fat?
Am I just wasting coconut and Castor and should I just stick to 100 % bacon fat?

I love my high lard bars, and I use that exact recipe. I do add sodium citrate as a chelator, since lard bars can create a lot of soap scum. I also add sorbitol or sugar at 2% of the total oil weight. That helps the bars lather more easily. Mine are best after a good long cure - eight weeks or more.

 

[gww]

I usually use 20 percent coconut and 5 castor and sodium citrate. I have added some table sugar but am not sure if it adds much. Lately I am getting a few spots of dos. I have not made in a while but am curious if lowering the super fat from 5 to 2 might help this a bit? I am not sure it was my bacon fat getting it but know I have a few spots on some with deer in them and chicken fat. I do not think the coconut oil and castor is a waste. Coconut does seem to make the bars more water soluble and not last as long but worth it I believe.
Cheers
gww

 

[AliOop]

I usually use 20 percent coconut and 5 castor and sodium citrate. I have added some table sugar but am not sure if it adds much. Lately I am getting a few spots of dos. I have not made in a while but am curious if lowering the super fat from 5 to 2 might help this a bit? I am not sure it was my bacon fat getting it but know I have a few spots on some with deer in them and chicken fat. I do not think the coconut oil and castor is a waste. Coconut does seem to make the bars more water soluble and not last as long but worth it I believe.
Cheers
gww

Yes, I do think lowering your superfat will help. I should have mentioned that mine is at 2%. Bars still feel wonderful to the skin - not drying or irritating.

You might try adding some citric acid or sodium citrate. They are probably the most “natural” chelators, are readily available in the US, and tend to be the least expensive, as well. I prefer not to do the extra lye calculations for CA, so I use SC at 2% of oils. It dissolves easily with my sorbitol/sugar in a little bit of warmed batch water.

 

[gww]

AliOop
think I was using about 2.5 percent sodium citrate, either way about 7 grams for each 16 oz of oil.
Thanks for the response to my question.
Cheers
gww

 

[AliOop]

I'm sorry, I re-read your prior post and am seeing that now. My bad!

How about your storage conditions? DOS has never been an issue for me before, but I recently found spots on a few bars that I kept in bathroom cabinet near the shower stall. DH and I both take pretty hot showers that create a lot of steam. We recently replaced the exhaust fan so there is less steam build-up in the bathroom. But it's still pretty humid when we are done. I believe that's why the few bars in that cabinet got a touch of DOS, whereas other bars from the same batch that were kept on my curing racks did not.

 

[gww]

I have mine on a shelf in a fully submerged basement stacked apart in little open cardboard boxes with probably very little air flow. Not all in the same batch have it and it is only a couple of spots as of now and I am making an effort to use them first as they do not seem bad enough to really cause issue.

The one in my shower for now seems to have dissolved past the spots and so trouble seems closer to the surface for now. I have given quite a lot away and my daughter mentioned a couple of small spots.

No real biggy yet but I did make a lot in the beginning and it looks to be a good thing that I gave so many away to give chance of using in time rather then just creating waste. I doubt I find another storage place and I still have lots.

My wife took about 30 bars of the ones with aloe and such and is storing them in a closet and I have not really checked those but have mentioned what she should look for. I do not mess with those bars cause my wife does not trust me to not give them all away also and she likes them.
I have some more bacon grease clean enough (not great) to make some more utility bar for hand washing and such and some bought lard and everything else needed but have been putting off making more cause I am still way ahead and I also feel bad when I run out of stuff to make soap with and feel compelled to buy more so I am always prepared to make more. Little bit compulsive in that way.
Thanks for the response and advice.
Cheers
gww

 

[earlene]

I have mine on a shelf in a fully submerged basement stacked apart in little open cardboard boxes with probably very little air flow. Not all in the same batch have it and it is only a couple of spots as of now and I am making an effort to use them first as they do not seem bad enough to really cause issue.

The one in my shower for now seems to have dissolved past the spots and so trouble seems closer to the surface for now. I have given quite a lot away and my daughter mentioned a couple of small spots.

No real biggy yet but I did make a lot in the beginning and it looks to be a good thing that I gave so many away to give chance of using in time rather then just creating waste. I doubt I find another storage place and I still have lots.

My wife took about 30 bars of the ones with aloe and such and is storing them in a closet and I have not really checked those but have mentioned what she should look for. I do not mess with those bars cause my wife does not trust me to not give them all away also and she likes them.
I have some more bacon grease clean enough (not great) to make some more utility bar for hand washing and such and some bought lard and everything else needed but have been putting off making more cause I am still way ahead and I also feel bad when I run out of stuff to make soap with and feel compelled to buy more so I am always prepared to make more. Little bit compulsive in that way.
Thanks for the response and advice.
Cheers
gww

You could invest in some Rosemary Oleoresin Extract & add that to your rendered bacon greases before it solidifies to ward of oxidation, and thereby put off DOS development in your bars of soap.

 

[gww]

earlene
Thank you for the advice. I am probably too cheap for that if I can just do a little adjusting of current recipe as well as make much less and closer to use then when I first started and was super pumped on making soap. But do not think that I am not thankful for the advice. It may not happen but I try and keep little bits like this in my feeble mind in case things change or I might help someone else.
Cheers
gww