MAKING SOAP FROM TALLOW.
Query.—F. B. writes: We have a little meat business and quite often have on hand a surplus of tallow. Now we have been thinking probably we could put this into a soap, something cheap that would not cost us too much to put on the market. Can you kindly give us any information in the matter, and if the idea is a practical one for a small shop like ours?
Ans.—It would not pay you to undertake to make a hard soap in a small way, as it would be necessary for you to compete with other soaps on the market, and you are aware that laundry soap sells at a very low price and is put upon the market upon a very small margin of profit. You would also find it quite a task to make hard soap, and the time required would hardly justify you to undertake it on a small scale. If you can dispose of soft soap in your locality, we would advise you to use your surplus tallow in that way, but, of course, this suggestion from a financial point of view would depend entirely upon whether there is a sufficient demand for such an article in your vicinity. Possibly you could work up a trade among private families and sell it to them for scrubbing purposes, also to hotels, stores and restaurants, but as your town is small, you might have difficulty in disposing of a sufficient quantity to make it pay you. On the other hand, it would not cost you much to make the experiment. You are surrounded by a good hog-feeding country, and it is possible that you could dispose of quite a quantity of soft soap to the farmers, as it is a very fine thing for hogs, and the truth of the matter is, their hogs would be much better off if they would feed it frequently. You might be benefited more by this suggestion than by sales from other sources.
The following is a recipe for making soft soap with potash: To 20 pounds of clear grease or tallow take 17 pounds of pure white potash. Buy the potash in as fine lumps as it can be procured, and place it in the bottom of the soap barrel, which must be water-tight and strongly hooped. Boil the grease and pour it boiling hot upon the potash; then add two large pailfuls of boiling hot water; dissolve 1 pound of borax in 2 quarts of boiling hot water and stir all together thoroughly. Next morning add 2 pails of cold water and stir for half an hour; continue this process until a barrel containing thirty-six gallons is filled up. In a week or even less, it will be ready for use. The borax can be turned into grease while boiling, and also 1 pound of rosin. Soap made in this manner always comes, and is a first-rate article, and will last twice as long as that bought at a soap factory. The grease must be tried out, free from scraps, ham rinds, bones, or any other debris; then the soap will be as thick as jelly, and almost as clear. To make soft soap hard put into a kettle four pailfuls of soft soap, and stir in it by degrees about one quart of common salt. Boil until all the water is separated from the curd, remove the fire from the kettle and draw off the water with a siphon (a yard or so of rubber hose will answer); then pour the soap into a wooden form in which muslin has been placed. For this purpose a wooden box, sufficiently large and tight, may be employed. When the soap is firm turn out to dry, cut into bars with a brass wire and let it harden. A little powdered rosin will assist the soap to harden and give it a yellow color. If the soft soap is very thin, more salt should be added.
PLANS FOR SAUSAGE FACTORY.
Query.—O. C. L. writes: I am now in business again on my own hook, so please send me your book on Meat Curing and Sausage Making. I will, in the near future, equip my market with an up-to-date sausage factory. I have the following machinery: 1 six-horse power gasoline engine, silent cutter, Enterprise machine, 1 bone cutter, 1 steam boiler for rendering lard, cooking sausage, etc. The room I intend to place this machinery in is 15×25 feet; would like to hear some of your suggestions, and plans in placing the machinery; would appreciate this very much. Has the freezing of pork sausage any detrimental effect on the flavor of the sausage? Accept my well wishes.
Ans.—The machinery you enumerate will give you a sausage plant that is quite complete. We think, however, that your room is a little bit small in which to place so much machinery. If you could put the boiler and rendering kettle in another room, away from the sausage factory, it would be better. You would probably be able to make such an addition as would answer your purpose at a very small cost. This arrangement would make it much more convenient because the boiler and the rendering tank in your sausage factory will make it very hot. The arrangement or disposal of the machinery will not make material difference in a room of the size mentioned. You can arrange it most any way to best suit your convenience.
The freezing of pork sausage certainly has a most detrimental effect on the flavor. Freezing meat always tends, to some extent, to spoil the flavor of the meat. When the albumen of the meat is frozen, and is afterwards thawed out, the albumen leaves the cells of the meat and in that way the flavor is lost and the meat becomes insipid.
PURIFYING TALLOW.
Query.—T. W. C. writes: “I am tanking mutton and beef tallow together at 40 pounds pressure, and would like to know the best way to use your tallow purifier so I can use my tallow with cottonseed oil to make a lard compound.”