How to make soap from beef tallow
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| soap made by my friend |
Then we had the steer butchered at home and I saw just how much excess fat we had to dispose of, it was nearly a wheel-barrow full, and that made me think about how we could use that fat instead of wasting it. If I can make soap using the fat from steers that we kill for meat anyway, the only other ingredient I need is the alkali and maybe some essential oil for fragrance. This is a simple and cheap way to be nearly self-sufficient for soap as well as using up a by-product that we would otherwise have to dispose of.
It took me a little while to work out how to render the tallow (see my instructions for rendering tallow in a slow cooker). Then I found out that a friend of mine makes soap and has done for a number of years. I talked to her about using tallow and as she was always looking for cheap ingredients, she got some from the butcher to try it (at $2 for 3 kg, it is very cheap!). She then agreed to show me how to make it.
With my friend, we used half tallow, and a quarter each of coconut oil and olive oil. After I learnt how its done, I went on to experiment with a 100% tallow soap. I have read differing opinions about tallow soap. Some say it will form a long lasting soap that cleans well, but others say that it may not lather as much without oil in the recipe.
However, the vegetable oil soaps tend to dissolve quickly in water and don't last as well. I would like to make the tallow soap and see if we are happy with the lather. I also made a couple of bars with no essential oil, just to see how that would smell.
Here's what we did:
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| The oils used - tallow, olive oil, coconut oil and lavender essential oil. |
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| all the other equipment |
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| weighing out the oil/fat |
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| weighing the water |
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| weighing the lye |
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| mixing the lye |
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| adding the lye to the fat after getting the temperatures the same |
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| mixing the soap with a stick blender |
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| smoothing the soap into the moulds |
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| leaving the soap to set |
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| Out of the molds and drying on a rack |
Have you made soap from tallow or oils? What do you think about the frugality and/or self-sufficiency of soap making?
You can find out more about tallow soap in my eBook Make your own natural soap
Other posts about soap:
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been making tallow soap for several years. use to make laundry soap. Haven’t bought laundry soap for 5 years. I now have found out beef tallow makes great pastries because it doesn’t have a flavor. So now I use tallow and of course lard for cooking. Most of the time I get both from my local butcher shop for free. I also have starting help others to render their tallow for cooking. You can use any fat for soap. I have rendered venison tallow for soap. So I save chicken, bacon for soap also.
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