An abortive attempt to make bear soap

[Oblio13]

I rendered some bear fat this fall and ended up with several quarts of clean, clear oil that would solidify and turn pure white when refrigerated. I decided to use some of it to make soap the way it was done for thousands of years. I filtered water through hardwood ashes from our woodstove to get a lye solution, and boiled that down until it would float an egg. Then I stirred one quart of the lye water into two quarts of oil. I ended up with a brown goo that won't foam. In an attempt to salvage it, I simmered it on the stove for a few hours, and ended up with a thicker brown goo that won't foam.

I have no idea what I did wrong, but as usual, I have increased respect for the old timers who figured out how to do this stuff.

Bear fat being rendered:

Useless brown goo after a great deal of trouble:

 

[trail2]

Try this go to 3:1 oil then just pour into molds and let set up. My wife used to mess with home made soap and found that you have to "jiggle" the ratios and strenght of the lye.
Make sure you have a cloth liner in the mold.
Hope this is of some help.
Jon R.

 

[Oblio13]

Is this batch salvageable or do I have to start all over?

 

[trail2]

Good question. Try to add more lye then mold. See what happens. You might be having too much heat loss when mixing.
I will see if I can find the info on remelting soap that goes blah for you.
Jon R.

 

[trail2]

Here you go. Try this as a "rescue"
http://www.millersoap.com/trouble.html#remelt
Jon.R.

 

[Oblio13]

That looks like a handy site, thanks. I'm leaving tonight for a business trip, so I've put the mess in the freezer to deal with when I return.

 

[British Red]

There are two unkowns in this equation - the concentration of lye and the saponification index of bear fat.

Each type of fat requires a different amount of alkali to convert it to soap (saponify). There are many saponification charts available that normally relate to the amount of sry sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) required to convert each gram of fat.

Eric on this forum has quite a good one if you search on it.

So you need to know how much alkali (Lye) is required and also how strong your home made lye is.

For a reliable soap batch you need to find the saponification index of bear fat (start with lard which won't be far off) and then work out how alkali your lye mix is. This can be done with pH paper or titration against a known stock (caustic in water).

Once you have this you can make a crude measue (the lye stick) to make future batches of soap using ash lye and a known fat.

Too much lye will burn the skin - too little and you don't get soap (which is where you are at). If your lye solution doesn't work there is too much water / alkali to achieve solid soap.

Hope that Helps a little

Red

 

[hog]

You could add some pine resin and seal about 400 birch bark canoes.
Ahem... I'll get my coat.

 

[korvin karbon]

You could add some pine resin and seal about 400 birch bark canoes.
Ahem... I'll get my coat.

not as bad as my idea of using it if you go skinny dipping LOL

Hope reds advice works, looks like a cool project to do.