Monday, July 16, 2012

Creamy Vaseline grows into 7 gallons of creamy gel, Sort of like when you put too much yeast in sponge.

I got up on Sunday morning to what I thought may be a failure on my way to conquering liquid laundry soap, that I didn't have to make from hard soap bars.  I found my pan, setting in a pan of water as a double boiler, had a foaming crust floating on amber liquid.  I sighed and turned on my drill and the water pan below the pan with my experiment in it.  The drill brought the mix back to the state it had been the night before, back to runny mashed potatoes, much to my amazement, as runny mashed potatoes is a stage of making liquid soap.  I call it making liquid soap but it is actually hot process soap making.  I was pleasantly back to having hope that my concoction might work.  I let it cook for about two hours before we had to go to church.  It did seem to be cooking and changing for the better.  Once we returned from church I fired up the double boiler again and it cooked for about 4 more hours.  I was getting a little frustrated, again, as it wouldn't turn clear like Vaseline.  It was a nice creamy Vaseline but didn't seem to want to turn clear, well clear amber like real Vaseline.  I got to thinking okay, so I used things in it I would never put in shampoo, so maybe they made it so it wouldn't turn clear, or maybe I am lazy and didn't have enough patience for the giant batch I made to actually cook long enough to turn clear, either way I was done cooking.  I took about two tablespoon of my creamy Vaseline and put it in a glass. I added about double the water and stirred.  It stirred up nice but I needed to add more water, then more water. It grew much more than I had expected, sort of like when you put to much yeast in the sponge, it overflows the bowl and grows down the cupboard on its way to the big splash on to the floor, believe me not something you want to try anytime soon, I digress...  I finally added about 3/4 of a cup before I got a nice consistency for laundry soap, I never call it detergent as it isn't.  Detergent means it is made from petroleum and I don't use any petroleum based product to clean with in my house and haven't for about two years.  Not in shampoo, laundry soap or for dish washing. I just don't want crude in my hair, clothes or touching my food, again I digress.   I did tried my creamy Vaseline at gel stage in the dishwasher to see if it would be suitable as dish washing gel, not sure how it worked yet, sorry.  The mixture in the glass made nice bubbles in my hands, so enough cleaning in the emulsion of water and creamy Vaseline.  It actually went through a few stages gel, and then stringy goo that needed more water and then nice thick laundry soap, yay.  Okay, so I don't get out much.  I decided the trial amount worked so I needed to add water to the whole pot.  Well, not the pot it was cooked in, as I discovered from the trial it was way to small, so I got out my cheese making pot that will hold around 7 gallons to the very brim.  I added the creamy Vaseline and water half way up, needed more, I added all the way to the top and now have about 7 gallons of gel.  So today I am going to put it into two pots and add enough water to make it in to liquid laundry soap.  Once I have it to the right consistency I am going to scent it, several different scents. If I could find bluing I might have added it into some of the mix to see it would have changed the mixture but that will have to be for another batch, I couldn't get any in town.  I wonder what bluing has in it, will have to check before I try it, wouldn't want to inadvertently put petroleum in my mix unknowingly.  Okay, so I may have a little OCD. 

While my soap cooked I got out of the house a little with Poppie, we have decided that the goats scare the rabbits and then the does, that have tiny baby rabbits, accidentally step on them and kill them, so we are moving the rabbit room.  Poppie worked on the goat stalls in the barn.  He will end up with two nice big stall, which may get some individual stalls but for now are two large divisions.  The old hay barn is currently empty, the big rounds don't fit so are tarped, three outside of the fence off of the driveway, under the tree and one in the yard tarped. The little goats, that roam free in the yard, not in the pen with the does, free graze off of it below where Poppie has it tarped

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