Tallow ho!

[penelopejane]

Ok, washed up using this batch today. Virtually NO suds, but it did clean my hands nicely. I seem to remember the last batch several years ago also included some OO. I think someone here had told me to try adding OO to increase the sudsing action. Wondering about rebatching this into a small batch of a castile soap recipe in order to increase the sudsing character or if I should just let it ride.

Rebatching is a nightmare. I'd avoid it at all costs.

You could use it as confetti in another batch. Just great the soap and add it to another batch 1 confetti: 2 parts new batch (roughly).

 

[reeeen4]

@DirtyKnuckles wow what an adventure! how do you collect and prepare the fat from the game you hunt? my husband has been asking me to make him some soap from Tallow.

 

[LionLady]

For those who do not hunt or have easy access to fat/trimmings, try visiting whatever grocery store in your area has a butcher counter and ask if you can have fat trimmings.

Everything MUST be cleaned up/disposed of in the meat department, on a daily basis, so you'd need to have a plan: Bring a lidded container for the butcher to put what you want into, and agree to pick it up that day or next day, at the latest. My meat guy grinds my trimmings as the last thing through the grinder before he cleans/sanitizes everything for the day. The 12 lb bucketful I took home yielded just over 8 lbs of tallow and about 4lbs of cooked meat - If I had a dog, it would be heaven!

My tallow-coconut laundry bars: They're a bit crumbly around the edges, I haven't tried scrubbing with one yet. But they sure are pretty!

 

[cmzaha]

For those who do not hunt or have easy access to fat/trimmings, try visiting whatever grocery store in your area has a butcher counter and ask if you can have fat trimmings.

Everything MUST be cleaned up/disposed of in the meat department, on a daily basis, so you'd need to have a plan: Bring a lidded container for the butcher to put what you want into, and agree to pick it up that day or next day, at the latest.

Sadly that does not work here in So California, all trimmings are send out to rendering houses and they are paid for the trimming. With a lot of begging you might luck out and get 5 or so lbs and will sometimes be charged what they get paid from the rendering house

 

[DirtyKnuckles]

@DirtyKnuckles wow what an adventure! how do you collect and prepare the fat from the game you hunt? my husband has been asking me to make him some soap from Tallow.

Yes, the tallow I use comes from the deer I have hunted. I feel a strong ethical call to utilize as much of the animal as is humanly possible. The hide goes to a friend that makes brain-tan leather, the longer sinews are used in making cordage or backings on handmade wood bows, shorter sinew and other connective tissue is mixed with some meat scraps and made into gelatinized dog treats (meat Jello!), liver for a friend that loves it, bones for bone broth, and so on, and so on. Even the "waste" really isn't wasted because it is left to decompose tucked away in the forest where it rejoins the carbon cycle.

 

[cmzaha]

Nice, I hate waste...

 

[Rhoda Ann Banta]

@DirtyKnuckles wow what an adventure! how do you collect and prepare the fat from the game you hunt? my husband has been asking me to make him some soap from Tallow.

I believe the website is soap mama there is instructions there on how to collect and make tallow I did it with bacon fat and I absolutely love it is a process and it does take a lot of time or Soap Queen also has a post on how to render tallow. I'm pretty hooked on it as of now I don't think I'll use anything else to harden my soap.

 

[Jackie Tobey]

Ok, minerals reduce lather, create scum. Gotcha. Simplicity is my watchword, so I will just work on remembering to use the distilled water so I can not have to worry about adding other compounds to the ingredients list. Gotcha. Thanks Steve.

Rainwater should work well too.

 

[Susie]

I believe the website is soap mama there is instructions there on how to collect and make tallow I did it with bacon fat and I absolutely love it is a process and it does take a lot of time or Soap Queen also has a post on how to render tallow. I'm pretty hooked on it as of now I don't think I'll use anything else to harden my soap.

Bacon fat=lard.

 

[Relle]

Bacon fat=lard.

Susie, this person hasn't been here for 9 months.

 

[Doris Ann]

My last batch of soap lasted ever so much longer since I became parsimonious about giving it away to anyone crossing my path (I strongly suspect much of what I gave away from batches one and two got set aside as curiosities and went unused). Consequently, my memory was a little hazy on a few details. I walked myself through the process a few times in my mind, then ran actual numbers through Brambleberry's soap calculator in preparation to doing the deed.

Here is the recipe in it's glorious simplicity:
1175 grams pure deer tallow
152 grams Rooto brand sodium hydroxide drain cleaner
540 grams water

I melted the rendered fat on the stove top slowly. I went outside and gently mixed the lye crystals into the water .....and that is where the first wheel fell off the wagon! I forgot to use distilled water. I used good old Rapid City, SD tap water. "Oh well, too late, moving on!" I said to myself. When the lye solution clarified, I stopped stirring and carefully carried it back into the house. Fortunately, I made it to the counter top without spilling before the safety glasses utterly fogged up. It was a balmy 11 degrees F outside.

I had run a sink full of cool water as a safety precaution, thinking any body part getting accidentally splashed with caustic can be immediately plunged into water. I checked the temp of the lye solution and it was at 125F. The rendered tallow was 148F. I moved the stainless steel bowl of tallow to the sink of water and stirred constantly as I watched the thermometer drop. The cool water bath brought the tallow down to 120F and we were off to the races!

Slowly and easily, I gently introduced the lye solution to the fat, stirring gently, but insistently. The stainless steel mixing bowl from the lye went into the sink and I ran cold water over it with one hand while stirring the mix with the other. Wheel number two then gently rolled past me when I spotted the new pair of bright yellow rubber gloves lying there on the counter. You know, it really isn't safety equipment if it is unused! I paused with chagrin and put them on.

Twenty-one interminable minutes of stirring before I saw a hint of trace. I slid the mold over closer in anticipation. Soon I had a nice, thick trace that would take 20 seconds to disappear and I felt it was time to pour the very first batch in the brand new white plastic mold I had bought this morning. It poured in and settled fine, but I had a fair bit left in the mixing bowl. So I reached for a cheap-o plastic leftovers tub to take the last....well, hello there Wheel Number Three, I see you have come off right on time. The batch in the mixing bowl was kinda ricing and there was clear fluid pooling!

Drat, I thought to myself, while my mouth spewed an actual string of foul non-family friendly epithets. I upended the mold's contents back into the stainless steel mixing bowl, and reached for a wire whisk. I began laying the cat-o-nine-tails to that batch like I was putting down a shipboard mutiny. But it was cooling and getting lumpy faster than I was beating. I turned on the burner on the stove down low, slid the bowl over the heat source and kept flailing like a windmill in a tornado. I cackled and cried "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!" for some unknown reason. I have no idea why The Wizard of Oz popped in my head during such a serious soaping incident, but there you are.

Moments later the batch began to liquefy again and I was back to a soft trace. I breathed a sigh of relief and shifted to a slower stirring pace. Once I hit that firmer trace it was back into the mold again. As I was pouring the last of the batch into the plastic tub I saw a little separation again with the clear fluid. Less this time. By now, I had been stirring for a continuous 35 minutes and my right arm looked like I was Popeye at an all you can eat spinach buffet while the left had withered away to a stick. I was done. It will be what it will be.

Several hours later, I popped the mold apart to remove and slice up the soap. The soap did not release from the mold very well and there were quite a few bits sticking to the slick white plastic. Pretty doesn't matter to me and I will survive somehow with uneven edges. But should I have used a mold release compound? Or waited longer?

Comments? Observations? Random thoughts?

I just wanted to say I’m excited to see someone fr9m Rapid City onthis forum. I am from Custer.

 

[tammy sue starks]

My last batch of soap lasted ever so much longer since I became parsimonious about giving it away to anyone crossing my path (I strongly suspect much of what I gave away from batches one and two got set aside as curiosities and went unused). Consequently, my memory was a little hazy on a few details. I walked myself through the process a few times in my mind, then ran actual numbers through Brambleberry's soap calculator in preparation to doing the deed.

Here is the recipe in it's glorious simplicity:
1175 grams pure deer tallow
152 grams Rooto brand sodium hydroxide drain cleaner
540 grams water

I melted the rendered fat on the stove top slowly. I went outside and gently mixed the lye crystals into the water .....and that is where the first wheel fell off the wagon! I forgot to use distilled water. I used good old Rapid City, SD tap water. "Oh well, too late, moving on!" I said to myself. When the lye solution clarified, I stopped stirring and carefully carried it back into the house. Fortunately, I made it to the counter top without spilling before the safety glasses utterly fogged up. It was a balmy 11 degrees F outside.

I had run a sink full of cool water as a safety precaution, thinking any body part getting accidentally splashed with caustic can be immediately plunged into water. I checked the temp of the lye solution and it was at 125F. The rendered tallow was 148F. I moved the stainless steel bowl of tallow to the sink of water and stirred constantly as I watched the thermometer drop. The cool water bath brought the tallow down to 120F and we were off to the races!

Slowly and easily, I gently introduced the lye solution to the fat, stirring gently, but insistently. The stainless steel mixing bowl from the lye went into the sink and I ran cold water over it with one hand while stirring the mix with the other. Wheel number two then gently rolled past me when I spotted the new pair of bright yellow rubber gloves lying there on the counter. You know, it really isn't safety equipment if it is unused! I paused with chagrin and put them on.

Twenty-one interminable minutes of stirring before I saw a hint of trace. I slid the mold over closer in anticipation. Soon I had a nice, thick trace that would take 20 seconds to disappear and I felt it was time to pour the very first batch in the brand new white plastic mold I had bought this morning. It poured in and settled fine, but I had a fair bit left in the mixing bowl. So I reached for a cheap-o plastic leftovers tub to take the last....well, hello there Wheel Number Three, I see you have come off right on time. The batch in the mixing bowl was kinda ricing and there was clear fluid pooling!

Drat, I thought to myself, while my mouth spewed an actual string of foul non-family friendly epithets. I upended the mold's contents back into the stainless steel mixing bowl, and reached for a wire whisk. I began laying the cat-o-nine-tails to that batch like I was putting down a shipboard mutiny. But it was cooling and getting lumpy faster than I was beating. I turned on the burner on the stove down low, slid the bowl over the heat source and kept flailing like a windmill in a tornado. I cackled and cried "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!" for some unknown reason. I have no idea why The Wizard of Oz popped in my head during such a serious soaping incident, but there you are.

Moments later the batch began to liquefy again and I was back to a soft trace. I breathed a sigh of relief and shifted to a slower stirring pace. Once I hit that firmer trace it was back into the mold again. As I was pouring the last of the batch into the plastic tub I saw a little separation again with the clear fluid. Less this time. By now, I had been stirring for a continuous 35 minutes and my right arm looked like I was Popeye at an all you can eat spinach buffet while the left had withered away to a stick. I was done. It will be what it will be.

Several hours later, I popped the mold apart to remove and slice up the soap. The soap did not release from the mold very well and there were quite a few bits sticking to the slick white plastic. Pretty doesn't matter to me and I will survive somehow with uneven edges. But should I have used a mold release compound? Or waited longer?

Comments? Observations? Random thoughts?

I have to say I can't help you with the soap, but your storytelling is awesome!