Introduction and bacon grease question.

[gww]

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

 

[kagey]

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?

while bacon fat is technically lard -- it's lard plus a whole lot of other things (that was used to cure the bacon). So it's contaminated lard that might even have water in it.

when I create tallow from beef fat, I typically purify several times (with salt water).
I don't know whether you used the bacon grease right out of the pan, or if you purified it - but this might explain why it behaved differently from factory processed lard.

 

[gww]

Kagey
I admit to being a little lazy but did make small effort. I did not use salt though. I did put in water and boil and cool and seperate three times. It was a lot of oil and I did not use two times the water to fat while trying to filter.

The soap is not quite as white as the bought stuff makes it. My first batch came out a bit soft and so I put the oil in a pan last night and heated off the water (I think). I got big bubbles while heating then smaller bubbles and then almost no bubbles and strained though a coffee filter though not much was in the filter.

Todays batch came out close to yesterdays as far as softness. I had thought maybe extra water on yesterdays batch. I was kinda curious if my experiance is normal.
Thank you for responding.
Cheers
gww

Ps, it is not immpossible that it has a small amount soy oil in it as I got it from my brother in law but my sister said it woulb be hardly any at all.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Hello & Welcome.
Congrats on your first soap, yay. Give it time as your soap cures it will get harder. As far as your water & soap' if you can use distilled water its best' though you used Sodium citrate that will help. I'd suggest taking a look at Brambleberry.com she has a lot of tutorial videos one in particular is on lye safety.
Happy Soaping

 

[gww]

peachy
I did use distilled to make the soap but only have well water to use the soap.

I kinda figured it would eventually harden but the bought lard is harder sooner.

I have looked at the lye safety stuff you mentioned as well as bunches more but have to say I still some how get small bits on my skin. I also had to wash tools fast for the next batch and it was kinda intimidating. I have went though about a third of a gal of vinigar so far and a bottle of dish soap.

I touch my mouth and can feel it in my mouth and other places. Not strong enough to burn or anything but strong enough to notice and so pretty intimidating. I am not scared so much as pretty impressed.

I did just use one of my pure lard bars even though they are only 8 or 9 days old and got what I expected, not much sud but hands felt clean and did not hurt and bar did not instantly desolve. It has been kinda fun so far.
Thank you for the comments and advice.
Cheers
gww

 

[Babyshoes]

Hi and welcome.

Your 8 day old bars should be safe to use, but they won't be good soap yet. They need time to cure, which involves both water evaporation to make them harder, plus crystal structure development. A good long cure will make the soap milder and firmer.

In terms of lye safety, are you wearing gloves, long sleeves and other clothing to cover your skin? Some folks choose not to, but only once they're aware and familiar enough with lye to understand the risks. Please don't use vinegar on your skin if you spill lye, only cool water. I only use vinegar in a spray bottle to wipe down my work area after soaping, and of course it's to hand in case of any larger lye spills as I work.

You can use your soap with well water, but do continue to make it with distilled for now. How it reacts depends on the type of water that comes out of the well - do you know if it's hard or soft? (It's hard if you get annoying whiteish stuff (limescale) on the areas it regularly touches, such as in your bathroom or kitchen sink that can be removed with vinegar or another acidic product.)

 

[gww]

Babyshoes
I knew about the soap structure due to reading but my using it was a case of curiosity killing the cat. I may not be patient enough for soap making. So far my wife is not that enthused about me making it though when my daughter mentioned making it she seemed interested in what she might make.

I do have a dedicated kitchen in my basement to make the soap in but did not wear gloves and long sleeves. I did make small and hopefully controllable batches and repeat the process several times with a procedure to try and control risk. As far as the vinegar goes I probably have got both on my skin and start with water only and then usually dish soap and then vinegar. I normal set the lye cup in the sink and pour a little in it right after adding to oils and put a bunch in the water I wash stuff and then add dish soap and recently keep a dish rag soaked in it for small drops that might some how get somewhere. I have used saran wrap as gloves when cutting and manipulating the bars when first cutting them.

My water heater and sink aerators get lime stone in them and so I am pretty sure my water is pretty hard in that fashion. I have seen places that had what I considered worse water with sulfur in it and really like my water better then when I lived in a town. My water is pretty hard I think though. The older ceramic toilets became uncleanable eventually with hard scale.

The bacon bars seem to be hardening up pretty well. I am out of the lye for bars and now only have a big container of koh that I got from my brother in law from when he was making diesel. Don't think I am interested in liquid soap but who knows.

My bars should be cured by x-mas if I decide they are not too embarrassing to give away and my wife decides she hates them. I paid $14 for a lbs of lye and this seems to be the biggest cost it soap making. I used sodium citrate cause I figured after the extra cost of lye when using citric acid was a wash. I do wonder if my recipe seems stupid or could be done with less and still work the same. In other words, is my thought pattern working in trying for a bar that cleans fair in hard water and is not so completely foreign suds wise to bought soap that my wife and family have a revulsion to it. Or am I stupid and my pre study was for naught.
Suggestions of my possible faults are welcome.

Thank you for your comments.
Cheers
gww

 

[earlene]

I have looked at the lye safety stuff you mentioned as well as bunches more but have to say I still some how get small bits on my skin. I also had to wash tools fast for the next batch and it was kinda intimidating. I have went though about a third of a gal of vinigar so far and a bottle of dish soap.

I touch my mouth and can feel it in my mouth and other places. Not strong enough to burn or anything but strong enough to notice and so pretty intimidating. I am not scared so much as pretty impressed.

Welcome to the forum, gww.

You will probably learn to stop touching your mouth or face, or pretty much any body part, or even your hair, while making soap, simply by practice. It's a habit some folks have to touch whatever without even thinking. But if you always were gloves and keep your hair up & off your face and start to make a concerted effort to never touch anything but the soapmaking materials during the soapmaking process, that will become your habit.

I hope you know this already, but I am saying it to reiterate the importance: DO NOT rinse a body part with vinegar after getting lye or soap batter splashes onto your skin. ONLY USE COOL WATER (& lots of it) to rinse lye or raw soap from your skin. Vinegar + Lye = a caustic exothermic reaction (lots of heat and bubbling can occur), not something we want to add to our skin. Sufficient water is to rinse the lye off your skin is much safer, less painful, and will minimize any damage.

Spraying vinegar on (vinegar-safe) work surfaces, utensils, etc. is fine, but never on your skin.

To minimize the greasiness of the utensils, I thoroughly wipe as much off before washing up. Usually, I do let everything dry as much as possible overnight or even a couple of days (in a safe place) and do the wash up later. But I always soak the stick blender (bell-part) in water to loosen soap & minimize damage that lye can cause to the gasket & glue within the shaft. So cleaning the SB is important to do earlier rather than later (I know this because I had the experience of a gasket breaking apart while using it once & having to find a replacement.

 

[gww]

earlene
I actually had been wiping as much excess off of my equipment with paper towels. Saw a video that made sense. I use lots of towels trying to keep it off my body while wiping. I wipe the outside head of the stick blender with a paper towel and then stick it in a measuring jar with some vinegar water and dish soap and then run it and then I wash with pure dish soap and then run pure dish soap on the gasket and then rinse that with super hot water running on it. I did find it amazing at how hard it is to get every tiny little cake of soap out of the gasket area. My water is coming out hot enough that you have to mix a little cold in it to stick you hand in it and I think that helps.

I have read the vinegar- v- water discussion in several places and know the safety sheet says water. I am more sloppy by nature then should be but am already convinced that lye is bad bad stuff. I should use gloves but in my experience then get stuff on me while taking them off. Reusing the shoe box as a mold with only small time lapse between batches is another potential touching spot. I am by myself with no distractions and am convinced that lye is pretty bad stuff.

I really like the ideal of letting the stuff sit for three days before cleaning but am not so sure my wife would agree so much.
I thank you for your advice.
Cheers
gww

 

[cmzaha]

Congratulations on your first batches of soap.

In my opinion, I would continue using distilled water or RO water when making soap, because hard water contains minerals that not only lend to hard water deposits, soap scum, and limescale they also lend to rancidity in soap. While chelators will help with binding the minerals and metals they do not necessarily get all and stop all soap scum and deposits which makes me believe they will still lend to DOS in soap. I have hard water and use EDTA with Sodium Gluconate for a total of 1% which helps with soap scum but does not entirely stop it. I will be moving to an area with a well and have very hard water so I will be adding more SG until we get our RO system up and running.

If your utensils get too oily a spritz of alcohol will cut the oil.

 

[gww]

cmzaha

If your utensils get too oily a spritz of alcohol will cut the oil.

Thanks for this.

My dad had a water softener and I hated his water and he quit using it within the year or so of getting it. If my soap causes a bunch of soap scum compared to the cheap detergent bars I use now, I will be giving several bars away and my soap making will probably come to an end.

The simple soap making has been kind of fun so far though. I know a tiny bit more now then I did before and that is always kind of exciting.
Cheers
gww

 

[MellonFriend]

Hi, I don't have any advice to offer, but I just realized that you are on the Bee Master forum too. I'm actually The15thMember's sister. I recalled her mentioning your username, so I just thought I'd say hello! Small world!

 

[gww]

Mellonfriend
Hello
It is nice of you to introduce yourself. I see you have lot of interesting things going on around your sisters place (Yours too?) and can't wait to see how a few of them go.
Cheers
gww

 

[MellonFriend]

Mellonfriend
Hello
It is nice of you to introduce yourself. I see you have lot of interesting things going on around your sisters place (Yours too?) and can't wait to see how a few of them go.
Cheers
gww

Yep, I am part of the interesting things going on here too. ☺ Good luck on your soap making journey!

 

[gww]

I did make some lp soap. I did not follow the coconut/olive oil route. First time and with the free koh lye and things at home, just consider this a boredom project to maybe learn a little.

I used about 10.2 ounce bacon grease, 4 ounce coconut oil, 1.8 ounce castor oil cause it is all I have. I did put 10 gram sodium citrate in it and one table spoon of sugar. Cold process.

I did dilute 14 grams into 10 grams of water in a mixing glass and set in my super hot sink water and used a stick blender on it. I added .2 grams of lemon grass oil to this and it still seems over bearing to me. I pored this milky white stuff into a decanter that I cannot see though and so further knowing of separation and stuff will have to rely on this jar and time.

I expect it to separate cause that is what I have read about lard.

I split the rest up into baggies for later use.

I have never figured out how to take a decent picture.

Since I started making soap, I have washed my hands more then at anytime in my life sometimes even when it is impossible for them to be dirty.
the stuff in the decanter is not thin as water and gives small lather and does rinse off and so I think I am good (except for smell which my wife likes though she probably won't use if she figures out I used used bacon grease). Until it separates anyway.
I always welcome critiques or advice.
Cheers
gww

Ps, I did scrape a couple of slivers of my lard bars into the oil/lye mixture incase it would help get trace going as I did all this at room temp including melting the oils with the lye.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

There's good information in the Beginners Forum for learning to make soap online. Check it out for tried and true recipes.

Also, scroll down to the Lovin' Soap Studio's FREE Guide to making CP.

 

[gww]

Zany
I have been through a bunch of them sites. I am retired and have more research time then what could normally ever be considered by normal humans. I have not hit all the tabs on the lovin studio yet as there is a lot there. I did read over the last few days while trying to make lp the two big threads on this site on the subject but just did not have the ingredients to plagiarize exactly but did find enough to feel confident to mess around.

I have two weaknesses. I am a hermit that hates to go to town and I am cheap and so usually go as cheap as I can be yet still try to have mediocre success.

My daughter and her mother in law has bought all the stuff like silk, goats milk, clay, special oils etc but have did nothing with them yet and has said she may bring it here but what interest me mostly for now is just kinda simple and something usable to people I know for as low as price as possible since it will be a gifting sorta thing. I figured it would be a start to learning the process. Sorta why I ended up with lard `$0.13 oz, coconut oil $0.18 oz and small amounts of castor for $0.44 oz. I do have 2 lbs of cheaper lye and 64 oz of slightly cheaper castor oil coming in the mail to play with.

I did make another lp tonight cause it was the kinda lye I had on hand but only had one oz of castor this time. This one seems to be going a little smother then the last one so far and knock on wood.

I was always slow in school and probably will be on this also and will keep pegging away and thankful for the helping hands like yours along the way.

Gonna take me quite some time to go though that site you mentioned.
Thanks
gww

Second batch lp no zap.

leave in oven over night and then split into baggies.
Cheers
gww

 

[Zany_in_CO]

It may surprise you but I was 60 years old when I made my first batch of soap in 2003. At that time, there was very little help on the internet and I learned mostly from books I borrowed from the library. I spent 6 months reading before making my first batch of soap. I was self-taught until I joined a soapmaking group in 2004. I made mostly lard and tallow soaps using fat that a generous butcher gave me. I know all about making soap on the cheap. I was frugal by necessity. Lye and other supplies weren't as expensive back then as they are today. My journey then was like the one you are on now.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

HAVE FUN!

 

[gww]

Zany
What I have figured out is that in the old days, you actually had to be smart to do things. Today you can be dumb and still do smart things as long as you have an internet connection.

I am 59 and spent the last year working on learning the guitar which was a very cheap way to spend my time during the pandemic and being one of the lucky ones that no longer has to put up with a real job, did not have other stresses that got in the way.

I have had much fun doing things that my skill level and intelligents gives me no reason to be successful at and yet I persist.

I am living the dream but smart enough to realize that being helped by others through their good will towards me has made the journey so much more productive.

So I thank you for your input and good will.
Cheers
gww

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Cheers!