My wife and I have been making our own soap for a couple of years now. Nothing special. No special recipes. No special concoctions. My wife teaches chemistry and made some in one of her classes to demonstrate the saponification process. Being high school chemistry, everything had to be kept as simple as possible. She brought the excess home, and when I tried it, I was sold to say the least. I haven't "done the math" on the cost relative to over-the-counter soap because it doesn't matter much to me; I LIKE this stuff, and will use it almost regardless of cost. Here's the recipe:
1) Potassium Hydroxide (granules available on Ebay for pretty cheap),
2) Water (either well-water, rainwater, or distilled is best),
3) "Oil" (we use coconut oil which is why it may or may not be as cheap as over-the-counter stuff).
The ratios are: 1:2:7 in the order given for the ingredients. In other words; 1 part KOH, 2 parts water, 7 parts oil. This stuff is so 'lathery' that I have taken to using it instead of shaving cream. But that's not what this post/thread is about. :)

Given the success of this extraordinarily simple recipe and process, I have decided to go completely 'native' and make my own "lye" (the KOH), and use my own "oil" (rendered bear fat) ala early American pioneers. (Rendered bear fat was commonly used by the pioneers because of its "purity" AND it was more readily available than rendered beef fat.) I'll make the lye from wood-ash, a fairly straight-forward process. I've got about 3 gallons of rendered bear fat from some time ago, so that's not an issue. I had planned to use the bear grease, in a 1:1 ratio with bee's wax, for cast bullet lube, but since I have developed a fairly intense dislike for cast bullets, I certainly won't be using 3 gallons of it. And given my experiences with cast bullets, soap should be a much better use of the bear fat.

I'll take pictures of the lye-making process and the soap making too, but it's likely to be a little like watching paint dry.

News at eleven.

Paul

Paul, that's really interesting. Not many people make their own soap any more. They don't want the inconvenience of doing something themselves. As a kid down in the mountains of SE Ky. we had little choice. Most everyone in the upper end of the holler made their own soap. When you went down the holler to the end of the gravel road, most of the younger generation used store bought soap. We had little choice. No money for such luxuries. We used about any rendered fat we could get our hands on & made our own lye from hickory ashes.  ......Paul H

okay, I read "bear fat" and my attention was got! I read this at work this morning and since I had a little time before clients arrived I got on the internet and researched the make of lye from ashes, quite interesting!!! I am also probably going to flesh out my sons bear next month so I should have a good bunch of fat!

I definitely have to try this! I am not sure I want to try making the lye the first go around, may be easier getting the granules the first time, but I will have the fat to work with. Actually, I could use all the fat I flesh of any animal I believe. (correct me if I am wrong)

That would be awesome if that were the case and I would be doing something for myself, which is always better!! I may be talking to ya Paul when I get ready to get started, but it will happen!! Great post! God Bless.

my x used to make some  fine soap, bread too, people don't take the time to do much anymore these day's, I may give it a try myself.

David:

1) Yes you can use the fat from any of your animals.
2) Few people understand the PROPER rendering of fat. It is NOT just putting it in a pot and heating it. You should 1) cut it into the smallest pieces you can tolerate cutting. 2) You should use the LOWEST heat you can that will melt the fat. THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT. Properly rendered fat is almost perfectly WHITE AND should not smell of the animal. If you heat it too much it will not be clear when liquid and white when solid, AND it will smell of the animal. BUT, doing it right takes TIME.
3) Given the time of year, I would recommend using store-bought lye for a first try. Most "drain cleaners" like Draino are 100% lye and work. However, as I said, you can buy it of off Ebay. Look up "Essential Depot". We use SODIUM hydroxide, NOT potassium hydroxide which is what you get from ash. Both work because both are aggressive "bases" (the opposite of "acid"). This is what causes the "saponification" of oil (fat).
4) It takes from 1/2 to 1 and a half HOURS of stirring to FULLY saponify the oil. The smaller the batch, the less time you have to stir it.
5) DO NOT use ALUMINUM container. Sodium and potassium hydroxides will eat aluminum 'alive' and ruin your batch. Use glass, porcelain or stainless steel containers.
6)Mixing NaOH (sodium hydroxide) or KOH (potassium hydroxide) with H20 (water) produces an exothermic reaction. That means it gives off heat. A LOT OF IT. Four and a half ounces of NaOH in 9 ouces of water reached 180 degress F by the time all of the NaOH was disolved - that's about 30 seconds. SO BE CAREFUL. I don't wear gloves, but I do wear glasses. If you get hot, liquid NaOH or KOH on your skin, you won't soon forget it. Even when it cools it is HIGHLY CORROSIVE and will blister your skin.

I didn't find the internet, and particularly YouTube, very helpful in making soap. There are a zillion YouTube videos on the subject, but like most of this stuff, everyone wants to complicate it. (Think about all the voodoo associated with casting bullets.)

4.6 ounces of NaOH with 8.7 ounces of water and 30 ounces of coconut oil makes about 15 "regular sized" bars of soap. Which reminds me; you'll need something (molds), to put the soft soap in. I bought off Ebay some clear plastic ones specifically for soap, and I use the "blister packs" from packaging of various things.

I don't have any experience with ANY other oil than coconut oil, but my wife recently made some at school using plain ol' cooking corn oil. Peanut oil would work just fine as would ANY "oil". The PROCESS of saponification uses ANY oil and ANY extremely alkaline (pH 14) "hydroxide". Based on our success with "plain old" coconut oil and cooking oil, I can't see why to use anything more 'complicated' or expensive. I'm going to use bear fat because 1) That's the way it was done "in the old days" and I want to try to replicate that, and 2) I HAVE some. Plus, I have heard from old-timers whose opinions I respected that there is something 'special' about bear fat. I tend to think there is.

Anyway, gimme a call and we can discuss the 'gory details' if you want.

Paul

Here's a picture of some of the latest batch showing the molds I use.



The upper left is one of the blister packs I use for the "excess" that doesn't fit in the molds. The others are some of the molds I got off Ebay. Lower right pair shows one of the bars unmolded. I usually leave them in the molds for at least 3 days and sometimes a week. It's important that they be completely solidified, and that takes time. The whole process takes time.

We often accuse people of not doing things the way "they used to" because of laziness, but the fact is, 'modernity' is more often about saving time than it is about laziness. This soap-making is a good example. Ignoring the time to extract lye from ashes and the time to render fat, it takes about a week to make about 15 bars of soap. (It would take about the same time to 30 bars of soap, but more is a bigger initial job.) So, would you rather spend your TIME wrestling with this process, OR spend the same time making MONEY and spend that money on BUYING manufactured soap? That over-the-counter soap that is extra-ordinarily uniform from bar to bar, and costs next to nothing in comparison to the time it takes to make home-made soap.

MOST technological 'advances' are first about saving time (which CAN be a 'good thing'), so that the saved time can be put to better - more productive - use. Second, is uniformity. Beer is a good example here. THE primary goal of ALL breweries is uniformity from batch to batch. I appreciate this from a business perspective, but personally, I prefer a little variability in my life.

Anyway, I like this home-made soap because it "works" better for me. There are no perfumes or nasty chemical additives, about which the effects on my body I don't know. It lathers sufficiently that I can use it as shaving cream, which saves me having to buy yet another chemical to slather on my skin. For me, knowing HOW to make it, and DOING it, satisfy about 90% of what I wanted from the initial exercise. Now that I have done it, I know 1) how to do it, and 2) have actually done it. Therefore, if I need to do it in the future, I know I can. That 'view of the world' motivates most of my behavior. Hence the desire to use rendered bear fat and ash-extracted lye.

While I do not particularly fear the 'collapse of The Grid', I continue to develop the 'survival' skills long lost to "technological advancement". Mostly because of incurable curiosity; partly 'just in case'.

Paul

QuoteThere are no perfumes or nasty chemical additives, about which the effects on my body I don't know. It lathers sufficiently that I can use it as shaving cream, which saves me having to buy yet another chemical to slather on my skin. For me, knowing HOW to make it, and DOING it, satisfy about 90% of what I wanted from the initial exercise

Eggzactly!!! Taking the time is what it is all about and "making something yourself" is very rewarding. If I can successfully do this with my animal fat, I will be one happy camper! Having yet one more use out of an animal is truly worth it!!! God Bless.

Quote from: davidlt89;142363Eggzactly!!! Taking the time is what it is all about and "making something yourself" is very rewarding. If I can successfully do this with my animal fat, I will be one happy camper! Having yet one more use out of an animal is truly worth it!!! God Bless.

Paul

Paul, there is another good use for bear grease. It is one of the most water repellent greases for leather boots & shoes anywhere. It's a natural for waterproofing leather & doesn't harden or cake up in cold weather like many other fats do. It is also a good leather preservative. Bear fat can be rendered in the sun but that takes time. A white plastic bucket with half inch holes drilled in it is all that's necessary. Hung in the hot sun over another bucket to catch drippings. It's slow but you don't overheat the grease.   .....When I was a kid down in the mountains most everyone in the holler made their own soap. ......Paul H

My GM made her's from scratch, lye from the fireplace ash, fat from , preferably the leaf fat of a pig, and the mix was cooked in cast iron.
soap was poured into a wood frame and after setting was cut into bars with a knife.
Down home East Texas methods.

All of my grandparents made their own soap and other 'essentials'. (My paternal grand-dad made his own cigars and dandelion wine. Definitely 'essentials'. ) My maternal grandmother was one of the most extraordinary people I have known in my life. She was the "MacGyver" of yesteryear. (There were lots of "MacGyvers" back then.) She knew more about the native plants of Oklahoma and Southern California than a handful of Ph.D.s in botany because she not only knew the plants, she knew how to USE them. It is both sad and tragic that most of that knowledge died with her. Unfortunately, all too often children run as fast as they can away from their parents, calling their knowledge "old fashioned" and embracing all the "new technology". It takes the grandchildren to appreciate what 'parents' know. Unfortunately, by the time the grandchildren are old enough to act on their desires to know their grandparents, their grandparents are too often gone.

I was always VERY interested in what my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother had to teach me. Unfortunately for me, both my Dad and my mother were the youngest of 7 children. As such, their parents were already 'getting up there' by the time I was born let alone by the time I could visit them on my own. My paternal grand-dad died at 80 (when I was about 17), and my maternal grandmother died at 100 (when I was about 30).

I got to spend a lot more time with my grandmother, even as a child. Her name was Minerva McKenzie. She was 'full-blooded' Irish. She was born in the US, but her parents had immigrated from Ireland during the Great Potato Famine. My grandfather, Ivan, but called "Thythic", was 'full-blooded' Croatian, immigrating from Croatia in 1903. Not speaking a word of English, he moved pretty quickly to Chicago that has the largest concentrations of Croatians in the country. He drove a horse-drawn beer wagon ala the Budweiser commercials, and married the boss's daughter. They moved to Oklahoma City, where he worked in the Ford factory for the most of the rest of his life. By the time I was born, he was already retired, but "retirement" wasn't then what it is today. In order to support himself and my grandmother, he opened a cobbler's shop AND a watch repair shop. Going to my grandparent's house was like going to Disneyland. Better actually. I was my grand-dad's favorite grandchild, (and I make no apologies for that), and I usually left his place with as much really cool stuff as my arms could hold. (Much to the dismay of both of my parents, who were anything but 'collectors'.) Some of the greatest sadness of my life is that I didn't get to spend more time with my grandparents.

Paul

Paul, I know exactly how you feel about not getting to spend more time with your grandparents. On my fathers side, grandpa couldn't read or write but was the most "intelligent" man I ever met. He did everything on the basis of "common sense." I think it was because he couldn't read that he based everything on common sense. He never learned to do anything from a book. His mind wasn't "poisoned" with other peoples "educated  opinions." On my mothers side, my grandfather could read & write. Actually the only useful thing I learned from him was how to reload cartridges. He told me of his military career & being in central America & the Phillipines. My great grandfather on my mothers side was Scottish but born in the USA in 1859. He was very talented with woodworking & made musical instruments by hand. Mostly fiddles. He was a good fiddle player. Old time mountain fiddler. I sat & listened to his hunting stories many times when he was in his 90's. Back in those simpler times, people did everything by hand.  Today's youth is lost without all sorts of electronic gadgets. .....Paul H