What are you people doing?
I used to come here and read about various escapades in beer making.
Then one day this thread popped up on the Today's Post list. Then it all went to hades. Not really but it sounds more dramatic.
It started so simple with making a few bath bombs for the wife, who loves them by the way. Already have the scales and such just need to get a pitcher and a few things devoted to trying to make some soap. I'm sure I'll have to buy the wife a new Cuisineart stick blender since I've used hers to try this. I told here I washed it quite well but I'm sure she'll never use it again for food.
Picked up the coconut oil, olive oil, and some lard at the grocery. Lye was purchased at the local hardware store. Went home and built a wooded mould, lined it with plastic from a grocery store bag, and away I went. Went with Yooper's first recipe with the lard in place of the palm oil, still haven't found that locally yet. Found out that her recipe amount just about exactly fills the mould half way. No problem since it made 5 equal sized bars about and inch thick.
Last week in the middle of brew day I doubled the size of the bath bomb recipe and used some lavender epsom salts the wife bought. This was done while I was waiting for the mash to complete. I found that dixie cups make a nice mould that you can leave them in until they harden.
Yesterday morning nothing better to do so since the wife bought some sea salt to use in the bath bombs I decided to make some salt bars.
Coconut oil, olive oil, castor oil, sea salt ran through a food processor to make a powder, and orange essential oil. Just didn't read far enough through recipes to remember to superfat it by about 20% and left the soapcalc at 7%. I used 16 ounces of oil and an equal amount of salt. I guess we'll see how they turn out.
After the bread loaf pan, yes I bought one of those too, set up enough to cut I put the pieces in a cardboard box in an oven in the garage preheated to 170 and turned off and left them overnight.
I'm not sure if I like anyone who has contributed to this thread so far.
I'll go see if I can get a picture.