Soap Disasters #3: Hamburger Helper Soaps

To this day this is still one of my favorite disasters. Upon discovering the Cold Process Method of making your own soap, I decided to go all out and first render tallow, making the bars from scratch and old school style. So after reading and re-reading many online tutorials and listening to the older generation stories of melting down fat, I gave it a whirl.

Now the fat I obtained was from the local grocery store's meat department. A good friend of mine happens to work there and he saved the cut up bits of Beef Fat they weren't using. After collecting about 5 pounds of it. I got all my materials together and spent the next 8 hours slowly melting the fat, rinsing it, melting it again. Following each step meticulously, I finally finished the separating the fats from the chunks of Crackles. Through this whole ordeal the whole house smelt like Hamburger Helper™, or plain browned hamburger hot off the stove. It smelt good at the time.

Allowing it to cool and harden in the fridge overnight, the fats separated from the water and glycerin inside. Simply peeling the round chunk of fat, I ended up with 3 pounds of pure white, clean beef tallow. So later in the day I assembled my soap making materials, intent on making a bar of straight beef tallow.

So I melted the fats, mixed the lye/water together, and then hand blended the two at the appropriate temperature. After two hours of stirring (this is why you invest in a hand blender!) it finally took to trace. At this point the whole house smelt like Hamburger Helper™ again, not from the previous nights rendering; but from re-melting the tallow. Too eager to see how my first batch turned out I ignored this small detail and finished with the soaps.

The next day I pop the batch of soap (only about a pound worth) out of it's mold and cut it up into bars. The scent was gone that I added (was a manly fragrance oil called Egyptian Musk,) and the coloring took an unexpected twist and went from a dark green to a light sea foam green. Allowing the bars to cure, I would eagerly wait the day I could actually use my first batch of soap, four weeks seems like a very long time while waiting. Oddly enough during this time it never occurred to me to begin work on a new batch of soap. LOL.

Finally it was here! I soaped up and scrubbed and scrubbed my hands. You'll never guess the scent that permeated the bars. . . . . .Hamburger Helper™! My dog loved me for the next few days after wards. Dramatic Sigh. My theory is that the rendered tallow was melted too long and actually "cooked" leaving nice bits of crackling fats. Also I've wondered the quality of fats I used, rumor has it the local grocery stores these days don't use top notch quality fed animals. I've since discovered that if you re-melt your fats with a cut up potato inside of it and bring it to a simmer for about an hour, the potato will absorb all the remaining scent leaving you with fresh, white, scent-free fat! Also I would highly recommend using tallow with lard and/or other vegetable fats to create a softer soap that lathers well.

So this elaborate disaster had many facets: Odd scent, Odd Color, and Performs Badly being just Beef Tallow. No wonder the older generations raise their eyebrows when they hear I'm making lye soap.