Title: Making Soap Part 4
Categories: Crafts Herb
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** Continued from Part 3 **

MAKING SOAP FROM OLD GREASE

Grease, vegetable shortening, oil, lard or tallow -- that is no longer any good for cooking can still be used to make soap. Even rancid oils, which you might ordinarily throw away, will make perfectly good soap. However, you must clean up old grease before using it to make soap.

To clean old grease, empty the grease into a large kettle. Do not try to boil grease in a pan that is too small because grease splatters when hot and can cause severe burns.

Dress appropriately for the occasion -- long sleeves, long pants, leather or hard shoes -- and cover hands with rubber gloves. If you have long hair, pin it up or put it in a hairnet. Protective eyewear is recommended. Either goggles or hard eyeglasses will do.

Place the kettle on the stove or electric range and turn to its highest level of heat.

Boil the grease 5 to 10 minutes. Turn off the burner and remove the kettle from the heat.

Let it cool a few minutes. Sediments will go to the bottom. Dip out the clean grease with a dipper or long-handles soup ladle. If the dipper or ladle is made of metal with a metal handle, use a pot holder when handling it so as not to burn yourself.

Remove as much of the clean grease as possible. Try to not stir up the sediments from the bottom while removing the clean grease. The clean grease will be ready for soap making.

Throw away the sediments. Do not put them into the soap. "Making Potpourri, Colognes and Soaps" by David A. Webb TAB Books, Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania ISBN = 0-8306-2918-1

Scanned and formatted for you by The WEE Scot -- paul macGregor

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