[MR] Soap Making Thanks!

[Terry L. Neill]

Greetings!

Thanks to everyone for all their wonderful advice and help!  Without it, I 
probably would have been in a quandry.  I offer the following for 
edification and enlightenment.  None of you who helped me get to take any 
credit for my methods!  :-D


How to make Soap Anarra Style:

Render lots and lots of fat.  Render more fat.  See Spot render fat!  After 
much imprecise rendering, end up with just exactly 2 pounds of tallow.  Wow.

Take a break and do a lot of greasy dishes.

Carefully double soap recipie.  Melt tallow.  Carefully measure out the 
original amount of lye.  Add to doubled amount of water.  Stir into melted 
tallow.

Stir for 1/2 hour and wonder why soap doesn't start to saponify.

Read over original recipie, smack forehead and swear a bit.

Send Ana Ilevna to store for more lye because original lye is caked and I 
don't want to have bits of it flying around the kitchen as I chip it off.  
Also ask Ana to pick up 2 pounds of lard for class on July 24th, since I 
don't want to spend all this week rendering, rendering, rendering.

Make cheese biscuits and use heat from oven vent to warm up semi-soap.  Do 
more dishes.

Help Ana unpack from visit to grocery store.  Wonder that 1 can of lye, 2 
pounds of lard, 1 jar of malt and 5 pounds of flour fills 4 bags of 
groceries.  (Well doesn't it always?)

Stir in 2 more ounces of lye into little bit of water, pour into warmed up 
semi-soap and stir, stir, stir.  Stir, stir, stir your soap, gently while 
watching Dune....

Add 40 or so (probably overkill) drops of essential Lavendar oil (left over 
from previous face moisturizer experiment) and 1/2 cup of chopped Lavender 
flowers from garden.  Stir, stir, stir some more, gently while watching 
Dune....

Pour soap into wax paper lined 8x8 brownie pan.  Let sit for the rest of 
Dune episode.

Turn out on top of chest freezer and carefully cut into bars.  Separate bars 
and leave sit overnight.  Nice, strong, firm bars of soap.  Ready to sit in 
sock drawer for the next 6 weeks and make the socks smell like Lavendar 
essential oil.

YEAH!!  (Those of you who helped out get to take credit for the end 
results.)

However, as successful as this experiment was, I recommend that beginning 
soap makers not use the Anarra Method of Soap Making (patent pending).  For 
one thing, it's expensive, as the supplies needed seem to include banannas, 
pinto beans, ginger beer, 6 boxes of cereal (Giant was having a sale) and 
olives.  For another, all that stirring tires your arm and leaves painful 
places at the base of your thumb.  Also, doing it the conventional way (that 
is, using the correct amount of lye in the first place) is much more 
personally satisfying.  Although, on the plus side, you do get a tasty batch 
of cheese biscuits using this method.

At Camp Fenby this coming weekend, I shall try again (in front of an 
audience!)  I think, for time's sake, I will use the Conventional Method of 
Soap Making--this time with lard and buttermilk.

I did learn that one CAN add more lye late in the process (at uneven 
temperatures, no less) and still get some nice soap.  Or at least solid, 
lavendar-smelling soap.  We'll test it's cleaning properties in several 
weeks.  The important lesson to me was that soap is more forgiving than I 
thought.  Good thing, too!!

Thanks again everyone!

  - Anarra Karlsdottir
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