One of the things I enjoy about farming naturally is the opportunity to view everything we produce or use as a resource, to potentially be used again or repurposed. I've lately been turning the feed bags and baling twine into sturdy market/meat tote bags. Windfall apples and weeds supplement pig feed. We sell not only meat, but organs and bones as well, trying to make use of the entire animal and waste as little as possible. I've used pig fat for lard, and I recently decided to try my hand at making soap, using suet(beef fat)!
All in all, the process was a lot simpler than I'd expected.
I started with big ol' hunk of fat. After thawing it and removing any pieces of meat, I cubed it and put in in a stainless steal pot, with some water, to start the rendering process. I'm not gonna pretend it smelled great, but it wasn't nearly as smelly as other people had led me to believe. The package of fat was close to 6 pounds, so I ended up rendering it over several days, refrigerating the pot at night.
As the clear fat separated, I poured it through a strainer, into a bowl. Then overnight in the fridge again to harden.
Then, I cut the tallow into chunks, scraping off any meat residue and draining all the water.
I collected anise seed from my garden.
Then came the actual soap-making; I wasn't sure where to find lye, and most things I read online said it was tough to find. True Value Hardware ended up having 16oz jars of it in the cleaning section, for about $4. Following instructions I found online, I mixed the lye into cold water (outside because of the horrible and dangerous fumes), and broke up the chunks of tallow into smaller pieces, then poured the water/lye solution over the tallow. It started melting a bit, but as I stirred it wasn't resembling anything near soap at all.
Finally, I fashion a double boiler using a big steel pot and the original tallow bowl. As the mixture heated up, it was obvious the chemical reaction was taking place, and before long (with near constant stirring) it was smooth and blended. So I poured it in a cake pan, and let it set.
Once hardened, I flipped it, and used a knife to cut it into pieces. Maybe I waited too long to cut it, but I found that every time I pushed the point of the knife into the soap, it cracked. So, no "bars" of soap, but some pretty cool looking stuff nonetheless.
It's sitting out to cure and let all the moisture evaporate, which should take a few weeks, and then it'll be good to go!
