Be a Deer, and pass me the Soap

Deer season has come and gone.  I spent some quality time sitting in a tree. Waiting. Sitting. Hoping. Fidgeting. Although no deer ambled my way, it was still not a bad place to spend some time.

 

Luckily another fella got a doe, so I still will end up with yummy meat, a hide to tan (more on that later) and fat!

Whilst butchering the deer (which is super fun btw!), I was amazed by the volume and ‘quality’ slabs of fat on the lady. I knew there must be something fantastic that could be made with it. So I grabbed some fat, asked the question, and google answered.  The main projects seemed to be candles and soap (and pemmican). Soap it is.

Phase 1. “Render the Tallow” – chop the meat off the fat, dice it into to pieces and toss it in the crockpot.  Cook on low for many hours (6+hours), mashing and stirring periodically. I might suggest conducting this activity outside, unless you want your house to smell like simmering fat.

Strain the chunks out with a strainer and cheesecloth.

And end up with a glistening vat of liquid fat.

Phase 2: Soap making

I used this recipe from WellnessMama and am hopeful that the finished product will be a multi-use body / shampoo bar.  For even more specific details about the process, refer to that link.

Gather items.

Measure out oil ingredients using a kitchen scale. Measurements are tres important because the oil amounts and types determine the amount of lye used. Warm up the oils slowly (but not the essential oils), watching the temperature with a candy thermometer.

Gear up. They say to wear gloves too, and that is probably a good idea.

Slowly add lye to the water. Get the candy thermometer going for this one too. 

Once both mixtures are the same temperature, slowly add the lye/water mixture to the oils.  Add the essential oils (probably could use a bit less than this particular recipe suggested). Then get out your handy dandy  stick blender (that you ran to Canadian tire to purchase half way through this process..), and blend away, until the mixture reaches “trace”. (Basically pudding consistency).  Lots of articles online about this.

Pour into molds. Insluate with towels and cardboard to hold the heat in.

After 24 hours, take out of molds, cut into soap-like-sizes.

Now to wait 4-6 weeks for the soap to cure before I can give it a real test run. I’ll keep you posted. All in all, this was super fun!  I’m sure I’ll be making more soap in the future.