Making Soap

Todays adventure has been several weeks in the making.  I first needed to do some homework.  I ended up with two books the "Soap Makers Workshop" by Dr. Robert S. and Katherine J. McDaniel which gave me a general overview and a nice little disc to watch the process, it gave me an idea of what I was supposed to see during the process.  Of course I couldn't remember half of it when I was actually doing it.  The other book "The Soapmaker's Companion" by Susan Miller Cavitch is a lot more in depth... I didn't finish reading this one.  I suppose I will find out later if that was a mistake or not but this book goes a lot more in depth and I like the layout.  I'm just a learn as you go kind of person, I'm not afraid to make mistakes so I dived right in.

 These are all the tools I collected before I got started.  I ended up needing a few extra things.  A crock pot because its the biggest pot I have on hand, one of those floppy tipped spatulas that are great for scraping things, a second measuring cup, a long handled entirely plastic spoon, and a third mold.  This recipe was huge and I needed bigger containers to hold it all in.  Out of everything you see here the two things that were most essential to me were the goggles and the white wine vinegar.  the vinegar neutralizes the lye acid if it gets on your skin and I have used it to wash everything with once so far.  I'm taking a break and will finish cleaning everything once I'm done writing the blog.
     I Started with the oil because it needed to be melted down. It is a good thing I started with the oil too because I didn't have enough olive oil, then as it turns out I didn't have enough rendered beef fat, there was no way I was going to stop in the middle just to render more beef fat so I supplemented with lard and peanut oil.  So I don't know if this is even going to become a bar of soap, eh if not I'll figure out something to do with it.  My oil was the first clue I had that it wasn't going to work trying to do this in the little bowl I had put out for the task; so out came the crock pot.  Which just so happened to be the perfect size for the task.  Next came the lye I put on all my safety gear and took the whole mess outside locking the dogs out of the kitchen and backyard so they couldn't get splashed or something.  it took quite a while to get all the lye dissolved in the water, it took longer than I expected.  The bowl was pretty hot to the touch by the time I was done.  So now came the fun part using the stick blender (which I bought specifically for this task) I slowly added the lye to the oil and kept mixing it all together. I added in two tsp of color I added the second one because the first tsp made the batch look like someone had an ugly bowl movement. I didn't add a third because I read in one of the two books to add as little color as possible to get your desired result.   I don't know what my desired result is yet so I decided it was better to conserve the color for another batch later on down the road.

I suppose at this stage it does still look like someone ate a few blueberries... but oh well we will see what it does when its all said and done.  I also put in the sample bottle of toasted rice sent at this point.  Again I have no idea if I put in too much or not enough.  I suppose I'll find out, after all that is the great thing about learning.

      So then I poured the soap at trace into their molds I did the little ice cube tray mold first because it was the smallest and this stuff was firming up quicker than I expected it too!  then I put the stuff in the bread pan.  I am not entirely sure what happened but at this point I realized that my two small molds were not going to be enough so I pulled out and lined a third pan.  When I filled the third pan and went to put it on the table next to the other two the bread pan was overflowing like a volcano!  It was crazy.  I've debated throwing the pan and all its contents in the trash because something certainly went wrong but then I changed my mind.  I want to know whats going to happen with it.  so I lined the outside of the pan with aluminum foil and called it good.
     Clean up has been a pain, so far I've done really well with not getting any of the lye solution on me... at this point the soap is still caustic it takes several days for the chemical reaction to complete so the soap is safe.  I've used vinegar in excess in cleaning everything up, I don't want my dogs, roommate or myself to get caught by surprise with our own skin being turned into soap.

Rendering beef fat

Today I got another step closer to making my own soap.  I picked up about 5 lbs of beef fat from the butcher and I learned how to render it down. 

At first I was just shoving large chunks of fat into the pot and realized that wasn't working as well as I hoped, it seemed to trap huge quantities of fat within the layers of fat itself.  so I got on line and did a little research (ok so maybe a little late but not too late to remedy the situation.) 

So next I tried smaller chunks... still having the same issue, so I pulled out the beef fat that I had frozen from a few weeks back and I cut it into pieces and ran it through this little mini processor I have (I love that thing but if I'm going to make a lot more soap I will be investing in a larger, nicer mixer that has the food processor attachment... I'm eying the BOSH universal plus... but that'll be just a little ways down the road I think.  This worked SIGNIFICANTLY better ... not just a little, a LOT better.  so I froze the rest of the fat, went and watched a movie and came back after two hours and did the same for the rest of the fat.  I kept the pot on a medium low and just kept adding fat in increments as I was getting it chopped up as much as possible.  On one web site I was looking at they suggested having the butcher put it through the meat grinder... I intend to try that next time. Regardless, I have oil coming out my ears now. 

I strained the Whole mess through a strainer that was lined with 4 layers of cheese cloth (just folded in half twice).  I ended up straining it through two more times the second time because a few things fell around the strainer (ugh) and the third time because I saw a few small little flecks that were still lingering. 

The end result was a beautiful oil that I will be using to make soap with here shortly... hopefully next tuesday.  I already special ordered the lye (you can't buy it anywhere local because its so toxic...  if the chemical touches your skin it starts making soap out of YOU. So best to keep some vinegar handy in case you need to neutralize the lye.  I already have goggles and gloves I have fragrance and coloring.  All I'm missing is coconut oil, I can't seem to find a single recipe that doesn't use coconut oil.  There is also some kind of calculation that my book referred too but didn't go into specifics,  that your supposed to use to figure out what combination of oils makes the best soap. However,Its become a factor of much annoyance because I'm not finding any specifics on that topic so I will update this blog when I get it figured out. 

Pineapple Upside down cake

I had decided a few days ago that I had to have pineapple upside down cake.  I then found this awesome recipe on line,  but honestly I don't want to eat the whole thing by myself thats just not productive for my weight loss goals.  So I have patiently waited for this weekend, which just so happens to be the weekend I get paid too, double bonus.  I have a bbq I was supposed to be at three hours ago, the Pineapple upside down cake is almost done and out of the oven.  Its an easy recipe and lucky for me my roommate has a hand mixer that I could use, doing this recipe with a spoon and good old fashioned elbow grease would have been a nightmare.

As it turns out, I missed the BBQ Bummer. I was really looking forward to seeing them.  I suppose next time I should make the cake the day before.  Also I flipped it out of the pan too quick... I suppose if you wait for it to cool all the gooey carmely goodness would have ended up on the cake instead of on the counter :p   Then of course I couldn't help myself, I had a piece and it was FANTABULOUS!  the cake is moist and delicious,  it is also very rich. I had to brush my teeth after because I could feel the thick layer of sugar feeding the ugly, bad teeth bacteria.  yuck.  I'm putting one slice aside for my roomie and taking the rest over to friends to eat while we play awesome board games.