"Drain the Fat"

Those recipes are always telling you to brown the meat and then to drain the fat.  For years I was a good girl; I followed the directions.

Then butter grew more expensive.
 
It bugged me: I would drain the fat off the hamburger, and then I would add olive oil or butter or whatever to the recipe.  Why?  I began to use the grease from the hamburger as the fat in the recipe.

I understand that, for many years, it was popular to decry saturated fats.  "Drain the fat from the sausage?  Oh yes, then use margarine in the recipe."  "Throw out the hamburger grease, and then put Crisco in the skillet to saute the veggies for your casserole."  Science is beginning to catch up to my mantra of: "The fat God made must be healthier than the fat the chemists invented, regardless of what current scientific studies conclude."

But how do we explain decades-old recipes that said to "drain the fat" -- recipes before Hate-Saturated-Fats became trendy?

In one of our food-history books, I came across information about rations and scrimping during WWII.  According to this book, "drain the fat" (and donate it for needs pertinent to the war effort) was a patriotic thing to do.  Keeping your bacon grease or your hamburger fat to use for your own family's needs?  Selfish! 



Ah ha!  That may be part of the answer to The Great Drain-the-Fat Mystery!

Scoring the Soap

Due to a refrigerator malfunction, I've been on a soap-making binge here the last week.  The frozen tallow (which usually lives in the fridge's freezer) was taking up space in the deep-freeze.  In a bid to make more freezer space, I determined to make enough soap to rid the freezer of tallow.  (The lard gets to stay frozen for the sake of tortilla-making.  Thank you, Glenda!)

First lesson: do not score the soap too soon.   Soap recipes usually instruct you to let the soap sit for 12-24 hours before scoring/cutting.  No!  I did that once.  Scoring the soap was an atrocious job that time: the soap had hardened too much by the time I tried to cut it.  So I fell to the opposite extreme -- scoring the soap as soon as it would hold a shape (maybe after 60-90 minutes in the soap-mold).  I learned this week that the soap is much smoother and prettier when I wait 3-5 hours before scoring. 

So far I've done three regular 3# batches (27-30 big honkin' bars) and one small batch of olive-oil soap.  Two batches to go, and I'll have all the old tallow used up.  That should be enough soap to last me and Maggie four years!

Besides my standard lard/tallow, I've made soap out of Crisco before, but never anything else.  Due to the aforementioned refrigerator malfunction and its drips, my tiny little deep-fryer had water mixed in with the fat.  Dangerous!  So I washed the fat several times.  Then I found an awesome chart for how much lye and water to use when you're making soap out of oddball fats.  In a few months we'll be able to try a bar of olive-oil soap and see what we think. 

Longevity of Homemade Soap

One bar of Yardley soap came into our house as a party favor from a baby shower.  (Isn't that the cutest idea?!  Soap for a shower!!)  As Maggie and I tend to develop rashes when using store-soap, we looked up the ingredients online.  Yardley is real soap.  And it smells fabulous.  We used it without any negative reactions.  Woo hoo! 

Maybe I wouldn't have to keep making soap after all.  Granted, it's pricey soap.  But it would save me the trouble of making my own. 

And then it disappeared.  It took nine days for that four-ounce bar of soap to be used up.  That seemed unreasonably fast.  So I timed the longevity of my next bar of homemade.  A five-ounce bar lasted 25 days.  That means the el-cheapo homemade also lasts twice as long as store-soap.

I guess I'll keep making soap.

Soap Mold

Soap molds tend to cost a fortune. But it's a major disincentive to me to mold soap in the ends of frozen-juice containers, or to prep (and later, clean) the plastic box I've been heretofore using as a soap mold. I lucked into finding ONE soap mold (instead of a whole kit) and it was just the right size for the batches I make (3# of Crisco, 6 oz lye, 12 oz water).



It's so easy to grease the mold with Vaseline. So easy to cut the bars: just slice into slightly stiffened soap with a 3" putty knife. So easy to remove the soap when it's fully set: loosen the wing nuts and let the sides of the box fall right off. So easy to wash the flat pieces in the sink. So easy to reassemble the mold for the next batch.

With the hand blender and the new mold, making soap is no longer a dreaded chore, but quick and simple.

Drying Soap

In spring we noticed that the bars of my home-made soap lasted so much longer than store-bought soap. But when I made another batch in May and began using it in August, the soap was dissolving quicker than it had been. Eventually we noticed that a fresh bar of soap would lather and smell soapy, but as it was used and we worked our way further toward the middle of the bar, the soap wouldn't bubble so well, and it smelled more piggy from the lard. Apparently it hadn't had time enough to get good and dry all the way through the bar, but just on the outside.

The theory now is to rotate the bars. I can use the outside of all the bars, and then let them sit and dry some more. That should solve part of the problem.

The bigger problem, though, is making the soap far enough ahead of time that it can sit for at least half a year, preferably a year, drying thoroughly. That takes discipline. And forethought. And making something a priority even though you won't benefit from it for a full year. Yikesy!

In other words, I should be making another batch. Or two. Or three. I haven't yet found a place to buy tallow and lard (other than where I used to buy it, which is now an 80-minute drive one-way). So I tried making soap from Crisco. I used one bar to see if my skin had an adverse reaction ... and so far, so good. I guess I'd better head to Aldi for some more shortening.

Fat

Butter = $0.95 per cup
Walmart's cheapest coconut oil = $1.40 per cup
Real lard from the Darien butcher = $0.35 per cup
Hydrogenated lard from the store = $0.60 per cup
Aldi's raw olive oil = $2.00 per cup
Woodman's cheapest raw olive oil = $1.90 per cup
Woodman's cheapest olive oil = $1.50 per cup
Off-brand shortening = $0.50 per cup
Pomace oil = $0.70 per cup

I ran out of lard when I made soap last week. I can't find butchers around here that actually kill animals and sell the meat and other parts; the "butchers" here are just meat stores. I think I may actually have to buy some Crisco for use in seasoning skillets; it's killin' me to wipe coconut oil and olive oil on my skillets.

I've been using lard for two reasons. 1) It was the cheapest fat I could find. 2) I'd rather use unrefined fats than chemist-made fats. Of course, pigs are unclean animals, so I'm not sure that my usual plan ("I'd rather eat the fat God made than the fat the scientist made") pans out for lard.

Looking online for information on fats, I discovered that somebody else uses the same thing I'd been using as a shortening-replacement. In recipes that called for Crisco, I was using part butter and part lard, with a little more butter than lard. It seemed to work nicely, giving a buttery taste instead of such a piggy taste, with more of a shortening-texture to the baked goods.

For all the grand things my friends have told me about coconut oil and its health benefits, I'm finding that it stinks as a product for greasing pans. When I've used coconut oil to grease the granola pan or bread pan, I can't detach my food from my baking dish. It also makes cornbread turn out with a weird non-cohesive texture.

I wonder if grocery-store meat departments sell suet at this time of year. I have no idea how much it costs.

Last week I made a batch of home-made soap with Crisco. I wonder if the processed fat will work okay, or if it will give me rashes like the typical store "bath bar." If it works, it'd be a lot easier than rendering and washing animal fats. If not, I'm going to have to take a long drive to a real butcher. On the other hand, pomace isn't that much more expensive than the Crisco imitations.

But in the meantime, I'm gonna have to find me some lard, somehow, somewhere.

Hypo-Allergenic Soap

Two months ago, I was nearly out of home-made soap. I intended to make some, and found that I hadn't washed my fat, and so my soap-making day turned into a fat-washing day. Since the soap has to cure for at least six weeks prior to using it, I am WAY behind now. I haven't made the soap yet, I am totally out, and even if I make soap today, I still won't have any until early May.

I can't spend $4-5 per bar on soap. That's the kind of soap that I need, but I can't afford it.

In late January and early February, I resorted to using the guys' soap (Zest or Safeguard or whatever happened to be cheapest) a couple of times a week, just to stretch out the days until my good soap had totally disappeared. I found myself itchy. One day at morning prayers, I was sitting in church, growing more and more itchy, in more and more spots, and having a hard time listening to the preaching because all I wanted to do was scratch! I couldn't figure out why for quite a while. When I did solve the mystery (that I'd just gotten out of the shower 20 minutes earlier and had used a "bath bar" instead of soap), I knew I had to eschew the guys' soap and find something for me.

The next time I was at Woodman's, I looked for some glycerin soap for a price that didn't send me into conniption fits. (They used to have it, but don't in Oak Creek.) I noticed instead Dial Basics (which used to be Pure & Natural). It was a three-pack for a dollar, and for that price, I figured I could risk testing it. I've been using it for nearly a month, and am not getting rashes or itching. You can even read the ingredient list and realize that it is not too too far off from what real soap is. This is good! Just thought some of you other itchy people might want to know.

Washing Fat

We've been getting low on soap, and I've been intending for more than two months to make another batch. So today, after a lovely two hours outdoors in the SUNSHINE and the frigid cold and the SUNSHINE, finding anything to do outside that I possibly could, just to be in the SUNSHINE, we did a little schoolwork and I pulled out the soap-making supplies. (Y'know, sometimes I wonder what the neighbors think when they see me all bundled up, outside, doing chores that don't really need to be done, on a day when any reasonable person would be holed up indoors with a blanket, a cup of hot coffee, and a heating pad. But there was SUNSHINE!)

Anyway, back to the soap-making.
There is no washed tallow!

Good grief. I didn't know that. At least I bought some suet last spring when the store had it on sale, knowing that it was getting to be weather when the birds could find their own food. And really, who wants suet? Well, hot diggety-dog, I nabbed it up for soap. But now I have a big pot of suet and water on the stove, melting my fat. At least it's cold enough this week that I may even be able to wash the tallow twice before bedtime.

(For those of you who don't know, you wash fat by melting it in an equal amount of water, and then letting it cool. The fat rises, and the meat and other impurities stay below in the water.)

Newton's law of momentum says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. But it also says an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Now I've been thwarted in my soap-making plans and am at rest. You do realize, then, that when I can't get going tomorrow on the soap-making, it will all be Newton's fault.

Soap Mistake

It's been a long time since I've made soap -- more than a year and a half. My supply was fine through last fall, and I kept telling myself that I had to get to it so that the new soap would have time to cure before I ran out of the previous batches. But I still had soap, so I procrastinated. And then the soap-stash began to get really low: only a couple of bars left. Still I procrastinated.

After several months of using store "bath-bars," somebody pulled the last bar of real, home-made soap out of the drawer. Oh, it is so nice and smooth and silky. And it doesn't itch. That was the impetus to get to making another batch.

I did tonight. But I noticed a problem with the lye-water (a problem which I'd had before) and attempted to intercept the problem and correct it. But I over-corrected. Now I have soap with lye-water oozing from it as it begins to cure. The internet tells me I can melt the soap and add fat and re-pour it into molds. But I think first I'm going to let it cure for several weeks and try one bar. If it burns like I expect it will, then I'll try fixing the batch. But for right now, I'm just going to wait and see what I've made. And probably make another batch so that I will have a proper soap all done and finished before I even figure out just what's up with tonight's batch.

Home-Made Soap

I've been noticing how the real soap (not the bath bars that we usually call "soap") lasts until the bar is tiny. It doesn't fall to pieces. It doesn't crumble away. You get to use the whooooole bar and none is wasted.

I really need to make a few batches of soap. It's been over a year and a half since I last made soap, and I've only got one bar left. That poor lone bar sure ain't gonna last me until I get my next batch made and aged. Unless I shower once a week .... hmmm, might work....

Lye

In the past couple of days, I have looked at FIVE grocery stores for lye. After all, I have a little soap to make. I hate shopping. It makes me cranky to shop. But I need lye. Problem is, there's no lye to be had.

I checked online tonight. Turns out that Red Devil has pulled their product for good. I couldn't tell whether it was due to liability issues or if sodium hydroxide might be an ingredient in meth. Either way, the only way to get lye for soap-making now is to order it online, in batches bigger than I want, and fill out paperwork for Hazmat. Furthermore, shipping fees are so high that it's going to cost me $3 for lye for a half-batch. At that price, it's going to take some thought to consider whether it'd be cheaper to buy soap.

"Oh dear, oh dear, whatever would we do without the government to protect us?" she grumbles.

I wonder if the Foxfire books tell how to make your own lye.

My Lard-for-Soap

I HAVE NO MEMORY!!

If I were 80, my kids would be gathering the following evidence (and other stories like it) to prove that I am not safe in my home, and should be committed to the nursing home where somebody could keep an eye on me.

While Philip was fetching the side of beef from the butcher on Saturday, I was cleaning the frost build-up out of the deep-freeze. Because of space issues with the last couple of half-cows, I've had to use space in the church freezer. So the first thing I did was take the properly weighed-and-measured tallow and lard out of the freezer, stick it in the cooler, and plan to return it to whichever freezer had space for it.

Turned out that the cow was a smaller one. The soap ingredients could've gone back into my freezer here. But I was pressed to get lunch on the table. "I'll do it later. I'll remember. I have to try hard to remember. Of course I'll remember: if I don't I'll be tripping over the cooler in the garage."

I forgot.

I even tripped over the cooler. But did that ring a bell in my brain. NOOOOOO!

When I went to grab the cooler today for hauling home groceries, it was heavy. The tallow was still solid. But the lard had thawed, softened, and spilled. I managed to scoop up some still-not-liquified lard and put it in the fridge. But I had a LOT of liquid piggy-fat to clean out of the cooler.

We didn't leave for errands as early as I'd desired.

And now I have to reweigh my lard amounts.

AND I don't know if I can refreeze, or if I have to make a LOT of soap in the next couple of weeks.