Lard Recipe

[AliOop]

Thanks. I let my Aleppo soap cure for at least 6 months and a year is better, but most other soaps I make are cured for about 8 weeks before I sell them. I haven't made salt bars but it's helpful information in case I do try.

At least a few of us here on SMF find that single-oil soaps, or soaps that are made primarily of a single oil (e.g., 70% or more) tend to need a longer cure before they are nice to use.

Combinations of oils can become more than the sum of their parts once saponified. The one example that comes to mind is that they become a "eutetic mix" where the melting point of the mix is lower than its constituents. It's probably something analogous going on with curing mixed oils, rather than singles.

 

[Quilter99755]

Question about cure times - do you mean that bars made with lard or tallow need a longer cure time, or that all soap needs a longer cure time?

I found that 6-8 weeks cure made my lard soaps nice. But once I was able to wait longer, they became nicer. I think that generally it's the same for all soaps, but you do have to watch out for DOS and how you store them. I don't have a problem here but know others in various places have problems (humidity? contaminants?) And as others have mentioned, some soaps do require a longer cure time.