Making Venison Soap

The deer Bob shot during his November hunt was the fattest he had ever seen so we decided to try to make venison soap. Not soup, soap. I had been thinking of making soap from olive oil and so had gathered most of the supplies, including a book called Soap by Ann Bramson. Her directions are detailed and somewhat complicated. Since none of her recipes included venison tallow, I went to the library where I found Making the Most of Your Deerby Dennis Walrod. His instructions were breezy and he said making venison soap is no more complicated than baking an apple pie. Well, after having done it I'd say he's right, if you include grinding the wheat for the crust and growing the tree for the apples. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but it is considerable work.

There are a lot of supplies to gather. An accurate scale, since all the measurements are by weight, a big tall pan which can be heated over a double boiler, a sturdy glass jar for the lye that will stand 200 degrees, two thermometers, a wooden spoon, and vinegar for possible lye burns. Of course, you need fat and lye, too. The lye is marketed for drain cleaning and has to be 100 percent sodium hydroxide. I got ours at Menards. A tested recipe is essential, too.

First, you have to pare away all the meat from the chunks of fat. This was a nasty job. We then ran the chunks through the grinder Hal and family gave us, then rendered it down on the stove to make about 3 pounds of clear fat which when cool looked good enough to eat, sort of like white chocolate. I wrapped the creamy white disk in plastic wrap and stored it in the fridge.

Lye is nasty stuff. I mixed a solution of 6 ounces to one and a quarter pints of water in a glass jar and the resulting heat and fumes were exactly as advertised. I also added 1 tablespoon of borax at this point, which is supposed to increase sudsing. While the lye cooled down from over 200 degrees to the 105 degrees that is required, I heated the fat to 135 in a double boiler arrangement. Finally, the temperatures were right and Bob slowly poured the lye solution into the fat as I stirred. One set of instructions said we'd be stirring up to one and a half hours, the other fifteen minutes. Actually, it took one half an hour.

You can tell saponification has taken place when the mixture turns a creamy white and when the soap drizzled off the spoon leaves a trail on top of the liquid. I wrote words, made stars and hearts which all lay quietly on top so I figured it was done. Well, maybe not because when I poured the mix into our cardboard molds there was liquid at the bottom. Rats! One book said, no big deal. The other said throw out the mess. I bet you can guess which said which.

We covered the molds with cardboard and a blanket and let them set for 24 hours. Yesterday, we removed the soap and it is now air drying for the two weeks Miss Picky's book recommended. We tested the chunks that broke away from the molds and it does clean your hands although it doesn't suds as much a commercial soap, despite the addition of borax.

We'll carve the big bars into little ones and in the process will see if there are any liquid bubbles inside or if there are layers of different looking soap. That would be a bad thing so I am hoping the bars are solid.

I like the idea of using as much of a harvested animal as possible so I will try making venison soap again in the future. We use the meat, of course, and have tanned the hides but I had never thought of making soap from the fat.

You'd think I would have had enough for now of the whole thing but I am thinking of Olive Oil soap... I think I will look for a bargain on a big jug.