Dandelion Wine - Part One

 I freely admit, I love dandelions!  It seems like I'm in the minority on that, too.  In my days of working at the garden center there were SO MANY people coming in to buy nasty poison to kill these plants.  I would just cringe as I rang up their purchases.  See, not only do dandelions make great food for our honeybees, they also make a wonderful wine.  The first time I made this wine it was definitely a learning experience as to what NOT to do.  I mean, I got wine but you could clean out a car engine with it because of how strong it got!  It never fully cleared and was always pretty hazy.  In the end though, I got wine and considered my first attempt at winemaking a success.  In any type of homebrewing, sanitation is key.  If you're not someone who takes extreme cleanliness seriously, homebrewing is not for you.  All of the equipment you need should be cleaned and disinfected before you use it, everytime you use it.  There are many good beer and wine homebrew companies out there that sell almost all the supplies you need to get started.  I decided to give it another go this year.  I found what I think will be a good recipe to use.  I decided to use a recipe from Jack Keller's website.  You can find it here.  I used recipe 29.  He has a wonderful glossary of different winemaking terms to help you understand everything as you go.  Okay!  So to start off, we needed dandelions.  Lots and lots of dandelions!!  For this particular wine recipe I needed nine cups of dandelion petals.  Nine!  You only use the petals because the rest of the plant is very bitter.

 My children took the task of collecting all these dandelions very seriously!  It was quite cute.  Willow got especially involved.  She seemed very happy to have a "job" to do.

 

Here are both of the kids with their collection of dandelions.  Ronan was too interested in trying to fling out handfuls of picked blossoms.  Willow was trying to get him to realize that we needed them inside the bowl and not out!  I really do have some sweet children.

Ok, enough talking about the kids!  Once we had picked all the blossoms we would need, it was time for me to pluck the petals.  This was the part that took awhile.  Like I mentioned earlier, I needed nine cups of petals.  This was just the beginning.... 

 

About two hours later I finally had the amount of petals that I needed.  The petals along with the zest of two oranges and two lemons got placed into a nylon straining bag and tied up.  I used a good vegetable peeler to carefully remove the zest from the oranges and lemons in strips.  However you choose to do it, use care not to get much if any of the bitter white pith underneath the zest. 

I put the bag into the primary fermentation vessel and poured the proper amount of boiling water over the petal/zest bag.  I did have a photo of this step but for some odd reason I can not get it to upload on here!  The bag needs to be squeezed a few times a day for a few days.  This is what this brew looks like once you remove the bag at the end of day three.  I strained out the extra little petals that escaped through the holes in the bag that you see floating on the top.

Now is when you add the sugar and dissolve it well.  This particular recipe also calls for the addition of white grape juice and citrus juice which you add once the sugar is dissolved.  Now is the time that yeast nutrient, tannin, and pectic enzyme are also added.   Here you can see what some of these wine additives look like.  I should say, the Acid Blend is not used in this recipe.

 Each of these ingredients play an important role in the winemaking process.  Please see Jack Keller's Glossary of Winemaking Terms for what each one is responsible for.  Stir all of these ingredients well, cover the primary, and set it aside for twelve hours.  After twelve hours, it's time for the addition of yeast.  Yeast is so important in the making of wine.  Different wines use different yeasts, and boy are there A LOT of different wine yeasts out there!  Your recipe will generally tell you the type you need.  The yeast is what is responsible for turning the sugars into alcohol.  Before you add the yeast to the rest of the ingredients you need to activate it.  This particular yeast required me to mix the yeast into 1/2 cup of warm water and leave it to "proof" for 15 minutes. This isn't the best picture, but you can sort of see the white foam that formed on the top.

 After 15 minutes, this gets added to the mix.  Cover the fermentor and let it go.  You will need to gently stir this mixture twice a day for five days.  This mixture gets very active as fermentation gets going.  It hisses and bubbles away!!  You can also see the foam that forms on the top as ferments. 

After five days it is time for the very young wine to be racked into a sterilized secondary fermentor that will be fitted with an airlock.  I use a one-gallon glass carbouy.  The airlock lets the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation out but keeps oxygen from getting in.  Oxygen is not a friend of wine.  If too much oxygenation occurs, you'll end up with vinegar!  How do you think we get apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar?  Oxygen exposure to the wine.  There are special tools to help you transfer the wine from one carbouy to the next without adding too much extra oxygen.  Here you can see what the very young wine looked like right after it was put into the carbouy.  It's VERY cloudy and would not taste very good at all if you were brave enough to take a taste at this point.  It has a long way to go yet and still had some fermentation to complete. 

I covered the carbouy with a cloth to keep it in the dark.  It bubbled away for another week or so.  During this time a lot of sludge fell to the bottom of the carbouy as the wine started to clear.  This sludge is called "lees."  At this point in the process I just had to wait.  I had to wait for fermentation to totally stop and the wine to fall as clear as possible.  This took about three weeks.  I again had to rack the wine into another clean, sterilized one-gallon glass carbouy.  At this time I added a crushed Campden tablet and attached the airlock once again.   You can see in the following picture how much more clear it had become.  There was a lot of glare in this photo and it actually looked more clear in person. 

The wine will continue to clear the longer it sits and ages.  I have to repeat the racking and addition of a crushed Campden tablet in two months.  For right now it is sitting quietly and peacefully in the dark coolness of our basement.  I will be sure to post updates as they happen.  Watch for Part Two in a couple of months!

Honeybee Swarm

Recently one of our beehives swarmed.  This is the result of an overcrowded hive and you see it a lot in the spring.  The hive has been busy rearing up the next generation and before long there is no more room!  Basically what happens is the Queen Bee leaves the hive and takes a good half of the hive or so with her.  They take up residence temporarily in a new location.  This can be a tree branch, the side of your home, a bush, you might be surprised.    Scout bees then fly around trying to find a new permanent home for the colony.  A swarm may stay in their temporary location for a number of days...a good week is not uncommon.  When bees swarm it sounds like a mighty roar of bees.  When this hive swarmed it looked like a giant dark cloud of bees in the bee yard.  It really is quite a sight to see!!  Below is the swarm all clustered together on a honeysuckle branch.  Lucky for us it was only about five feet from the original hive.  I didn't even need a ladder!

The queen is in the middle of that giant ball of bees!  We generally try to collect swarms when we have them and when we can safely get to them.  After all, it's a new free hive of bees!  Being five months pregnant with our next child I was a little hesitant this year.  It seems that while I'm pregnant if I get stung, I swell up so bad!  But, after talking to one of our beekeeping friends we were convinced and decided to go ahead!  It's actually not too hard to collect a swarm.  All you really need for the short term is a cardboard box if you don't have a hive ready to go.  We happened to have an extra brood chamber that we just drilled a hold into until the new hive pieces came a few days later.  So, the first thing I did was trim as many of the little branches that were in the way.  You have to be able to get a good hard shake to knock all the bees down into your box that you hold right under the swarm.  For us, once they were in the cardboard box they then went into the brood chamber box that we had set up waiting for them.  You can see me literally dumping the heavy box of bees into their new home!

Once we had the bees in the brood chamber box, we put a piece of wood on top with a large weight on top of that.  This would serve as their home for what was about a week until we got the rest of the hive components that we needed.  Now we were very lucky that this swarm was so close to where we set up the hive.  You can see the bush that they collected on right in the background!  If you have to move a swarm too far from where they collected, about 10-20 feet or so, all the scout bees won't be able to find their way back to the group.  

The bees took to this new location very well and very fast.  Within a week they had drawn all this lovely white comb and the queen was thriving.  This is much better than last year.  The swarm we collected last year did not do well from the get-go and it didn't take long for the hive to fail.  That swarm had collected on a branch above our barn and he had a difficult time getting them down.  Plus, we had to move the swarm much farther than 20ft. so I know we lost a lot of the group.  Here was this years collected swarm the next day.  

There you have it.  That's how we collected yet another swarm.  And you know what?........I didn't get stung once!!

Kool-Aid and Food Colors for Fiber.

Some people are amazed when I tell them you can dye wool with Kool-Aid or other food colorings.  To be honest, even I was a bit skeptical in the beginning!  After I tried it, I was sold!  I never drink the stuff as I try to keep my family away from consuming artificial colors or flavors, but boy do they produce some beautiful colors on fleece.  Food colors fall into the Acid Dye family of fiber dyes.  I could go into a long and complicated chemical explanation as to how these colors work, but you'd need to have a background or at least a very good understanding of chemistry to understand what I'd say.  So, for the rest of us, it basically works like this.  You take a protein fiber (This won't work on cellulose fiber, like cotton, hemp, or linen.) such as wool, expose it to an acid while in the presence of the dye and heat, and it causes certain molecules in the fiber to create a new chemical bond with the dye.  This is what makes the fiber take the color!  I should add, one of the biggest reasons I love using food colors is this.....It's safe to use in my kitchen around my kids and pets.  I don't have to suit up, glove up, or mask up.  I don't have to run my kids out of the kitchen.  If my kids or I come into contact with the color I don't need to panic at all.  I can also use the same kitchen pots and utensils I use when I make pasta.  No separate pots or tools required!

Alright, let me tell you how I do this.  First, you decide how much fiber you want to dye.  I tend to dye one pound or less at a time because it doesn't overcrowd the stockpot and the dye has better access to all the fiber.  You could do more, you would just need to get a pot large enough to suit your needs.  Take your weighed fiber and put it in a large bowl.  To this you are going to add equal parts cool water and white vinegar.  You want to be able to really soak all the fiber well for 10 minutes.  Again, you really need an acid, such a vinegar to make this work.  I get the standard 5% acetic acid white vinegar that is sold at every grocery store, but I have heard of some dyers purchasing the much more concentrated version from photography stores or chemical supply companies.   

While the wool is soaking in the vinegar bath, I get my colors out.  For this particular batch, I used Kool-Aid in Lemonade, Orange, Cherry, and Peach-Mango.  It smelled very fruity needless to say!  I also use the Wilson food color gels you can get at craft stored in the cake section.  Some grocery stores have a few of these too.  These produce some amazing colors.  If I'm using these I take about 1/8 to 1/4 tsp. of the gel and mix it very well into 1/2 cup of vinegar.  This is what I pour onto the fiber.

After the 10 minutes has passed it's time to put your fiber into the stockpot.  I generally separate the fiber into two parts so I can add two layers of dye.  I very gently take the first section of the fiber out of the vinegar bath and lay it in the pot.  I squeeze the vinegar/water out, but you don't have to.  You'll be adding more of both once all the fiber is in the pot.  Add hot water until you're not quite up to the top of the fiber.  I use the hot water out of the sink.  Now you add your colors.  You can do this however you like, be creative and experiment!  You'll never quite know what the final result will be.  You can see below how for this batch I put the different colors in different locations.  This gives the fiber a really nice variegated effect in the end.  One word of advice, don't put opposite colors right next to each other or you'll end up with a muddy brown.  Think green mixed with red or purple mixed with orange.  These colors just don't mix well!

I then add the second layer of fiber.  Again, gently remove it from the vinegar bath and gently layer it on top of the color soaked fiber.  Very carefully add more hot water to the pot until the water comes up to almost cover the fleece.  You just don't want to slosh the water in because you can disturb the Kool-Aide below.  Add the last of your colors.  Now, you're going to add 1-2 cups of white vinegar to the pot.  Put the pot on the stove, put the lid on, and turn the burner no higher than about medium-low.  You want to get the vat to the point that it is steaming.  Much hotter than this and you can damage the fleece.  Imagine boiling your hair!!  The vinegar and heat make the magic happen!  I VERY GENTLY push and poke the fiber occasionally as it heats just to help the dye disperse, but be very careful not to agitate the fiber or you can end up with felted bits.  It generally takes about 15 minutes for the fleece to come to steaming and set the dye.  Ideally, you want to "exhaust the dye bath."  This means you want the fiber to take up all the available dye in the pot.  Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn't.  Don't worry if it doesn't.  Below is a picture showing what this looks like.  You can see that the water where the spoon is is sort of cloudy, but there is no red or orange color.  All the dye has been soaked up by the fiber.

Now you're going to dump the fiber into the sink and soak it with cool water until the water runs clear. This can take a handful of rinses to happen.  Just fill the sink with cool water and let the fiber soak for 10-15 minutes.  Repeat as many times as you need to.  Sometimes it takes me five rinses.  If you've used very vivid colors, I've found it can take a bit longer.

Once the water runs clear, gently squeeze out as much water as you can and then set it out on a towel-covered table or drying rack to air dry.  Don't worry if color leaches out onto the towel.  A good wash with some hot soapy water will take it right out.  Remember, these colors can't dye cotton or other plant fibers.  Once it's dry you have lovely fiber that's ready to comb or card for spinning or felting!  If you leave wool or other fibers that have been dyed with Kool-Aid or other food colors in sunlight they will fade.  So for the sake of all your hard work, avoid storing your fiber in constant sunlight.  Most fiber isn't suppose to be stored this way to begin with!  The vast majority of fiber-folks I've talked to who use these types of dyes are very happy with the colorfastness over time.  And as with most animal fibers, you want to handwash separately in cold water, then lay flat to dry.  The fiber on the left was a white wool/mohair blend dyed with Kool-Aid.  The fiber on the right was silvery-gray wool overdyed with both Kool-Aid and Wilson gel color.  It was a good day!

So yeah!  You can use many colors or just one, but it is so much fun to see how the fiber turns out.  No two batches are ever the same, even if you use the same colors as you did before.  I've been getting the wool spun so hopefully soon I can get some pictures posted to show how the fiber looks when spun into yarn.  Until next time!

   

Shearing and Cleaning Fleece

I am SOOO happy to be able to finally post again!  After years of struggling with the pain and frustration of dial-up Internet, we now have satellite Internet.  Yay!!  I can finally see to it that this little blog gets updated on a normal basis!  So anyways, a lot has been going on since the last post!  Spring has certainly sprung around here and then some.  I had promised to post some photos of our sheep.  I thought it would be nice to post some pictures and give a little tutorial of the shearing and wool preparation process.  A lot goes into getting fleece and fiber ready to spin into yarn!  Here they are, Razel is the dark sheep and Gandalf is the white.  Kaya the goat is also here.

  

So, when the time comes to shear, the sheep are literally set on their backsides like they would be sitting on a chair.  For whatever reason, this position makes the sheep really passive and it doesn't hurt them at all.  The shearer is then able to run the clippers along the sheep in a way that keeps the fleece in essentially one piece.  Well, a good shearer does this.  I am happy to say that mine does! Below you can see what I mean by the sitting position.  Razel's head is tucked under his arm while he runs the clippers down her side.

 

Look how much smaller they look after they've been clipped!  Lincolns produce so much long, beautiful, lustrous fleece.  They look so tiny once they loose it all.

 

Here is my daughter Willow sitting on the sheets that are full of wool.  One for each sheep!  She was so excited to come and "help" shear the sheep.  At this point the wool is ready to be washed and prepped for dying and combing/carding for the spinning wheel.

To get the fleece ready to wash, you first need to "skirt" it and remove any unusable parts.  Manure tags, excessive vegetation, and extremely stained areas (urine) are removed.  You can see what I was talking about when I said that a good shearer will remove the fleece in one big piece.  In the picture below, the wool on the top of the sheet is from her neck and the bottom of the was her backside.  It's like it was peeled off of her.  Oh, and just to point out, that's quite a large sheet and the fleece almost covered it.  That's a lot of wool!!

I sit and start picking out the bad bits while the fleece is still on the sheet.  A nice warm sunny day is great for this!  Here my son Ronan wanted to be a part of it all while I was working on Gandalf's fleece.

Once I've picked out the really big and nasty bits I put the fleece onto a wool rack to really start going over it to get as much vegetable matter out as I possibly can.  This can take a while and be quite tedious, but it's really important.  I had to split the fleeces into two parts to do this because there was so much wool on these sheep!

Once it's been picked over as good as you can get while keeping your sanity, it's time to wash!  This is were one really does realize how DIRTY sheep get.  I use my top-loading washing machine for this process.  First you need to fill the machine with VERY HOT water, just hotter than your hands can take.  Turn off your machine.  You then add the detergent.  I use the original Dawn blue dish liquid.  Many experienced wool workers told me this was the best and it did work wonderfully! Now the amount to use seems to very from one person you ask to another.  I use one tablespoon of detergent for every 8oz. of fleece.  Now you're ready to add your wool.  You very gently submerge the wool into the hot soapy water.  Again, make sure that you have turned the machine off before you walk away!!!!  You want no agitation whatsoever or you'll end up with a big felt doughnut of wool.  For those of you that don't work with wool too much or at all, animal fiber (wool)+ hot, soapy water + aggitation = felt!!  There are times in knitting and crochet when this is wanted, but not when you're trying to wash wool.

After about 60 minutes it's time to drain and spin out the wool.  Turn the washer dial to your spin cycle and just let it do it's thing.  Make sure you've turned off any extra rinse cycles.  You will see a flood of nasty dirty water drain into your sink.  This whole process will be repeated two more times.

Once you've gotten through the three wash cycles you'll need to put the fleece through three rinse cycles.  This is done the exact same way as washing, but you use cool water and no detergent.  I also add one cup of vinegar to the first two rinse cycles to help break up the detergent.  You want the water to run clear on the last rinse cycle.  If you need an extra rinse, then do an extra rinse.  Get all the detergent out.  At this point you gently take the wool out of the machine and lay it out to dry.  You should now have nice clean wool.  From here you can apply dye or comb/card it for spinning.  Some like to dye before they spin, some after.  Here is Razel's wool after it's been washed and dried.  It's a lovely silvery-gray with naturally brown tips.  So pretty!

Oh, and remember when I said that Lincoln sheep have long locks of wool?  Well, here is a lock of Razel's wool next to a normal butter knife....

So to sum all this up, getting wool ready for the spinning wheel takes a bit of work and preparation, but it really is worth the effort.  Someday as we continue to expand, I may get to the point that I have to send the fleece off to be washed and prepared, but for now it really is rewarding to do it myself.  Next, I'll show you how I am able to use food colors and Kool-Aide (yes, Kool-Aide!!)  to dye the wool beautiful colors!

Some of our feathery, winged, and four-legged friends.

So today I decided to take my camera outside with me to snap a few pictures.  I thought it might be nice for you all to see the animals I've been talking about!  Here are our chickens!  They are looking, pecking, and scratching for any bit of seeds or an unfortunate bug or worm.  These are the ladies that will be laying the eggs this year.

 The big white chicken in the middle of this picture is our lone rooster named Homer.  He's quite content being the only guy in a sea of women.

 As I was walking back up towards the house I heard some buzzing which told me some of the bees were out.  I got this picture and you can see three bees on the outside of the hive.  At this point the bees are starting to put up brood (baby bees) and cleaning out their hive from the long winter.  I will be giving them supplemental syrup for a while yet until we get a nectar flow.  The bees are eager for this to happen too!

 Last but never least, here is our big farm dog, Orion.  He's a wonderful guard dog and lets us know if anything is off around the farm.  He takes guarding the chickens very seriously.  At the end of the day he is tired and hungry, ready to come inside for his food and warm bed.  Our other two little dogs, Ziggy and Zoe, were off exploring somewhere when I was out with the camera.  Of course!

Now the only ones I need to get on here are the sheep and the goat!  I'll have pictures of them coming soon!  Until next time!

Is it Spring Yet?

It's been awhile since I posted last!  To start, I have some very sad news.  Our world was turned upside down two days after Christmas when my father, Richard, died very suddenly and tragically.  He was very involved with the farm and all the goings on here.  We've been trying to get back on our feet and pick up the pieces.  We'll get there! 
We have been getting all our seeds and onion plants ordered for this years garden.  It seems like I was just getting seeds started and transplants taken care of the other day.  It's amazing how fast a year can go by.  We order most of our seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I absolutely love this company.  Their selection of heirloom seeds is simply unbeatable!  I have to get all our seed starting soil and organic fertilizers yet, but thankfully there is still some time! 
I am happy to report that we are on track to sell free-range eggs at the Grandview Farmers' Market this year!  We have a couple more things to get lined up before we call for our inspection (mainly deciding on the egg cartons) but we should be able to get that taken care of in the next month or so.  The chickens are happy and healthy.  They are loving the warmer weather we've been having.  It makes it easier for them to want to wander around the farm.  Although, I think my chickens would be out foraging even if there was a foot of snow on the ground! 
Our bees have been taking advantage of the warmer weather, too!  On all the nice sunny and warm days we've had this past week, the bees have been out of their hives.  They've been taking cleansing flights which is an important part of bee health.  I've even been able to start giving them sugar syrup to help supplement their winter honey reserves.  This basically helps give an extra layer of protection to help ensure (hopefully!) the survival of the hive.  This time of year we're also busy getting honey frames put together and ready to go for spring, summer, and fall.  One less thing to worry about! 
I don't want to forget the newest additions to the farm.  We have sheep!  I am the now the caretaker of two Lincoln Longwool sheep named Gandalf and Razel.  They will be one this spring.  I purchased them from my spinning teacher, Kathy Cunningham, out of Sardinia, Ohio.  She is the owner of The Black Sheep Fiber Farm.  Such a nice lady!  Lincoln Longwools are used primarily for their wool.  They grow very long fleeces, sometimes up to 15 inches long!  They are an old breed that originated in Lincolnshire, England.  They are believed to be the largest breed of sheep in the world with adult rams sometimes exceeding 350 pounds!!  Gandalf and Razel aren't little, lets put it that way.  They are still growing, too!  Gandalf is white and will produce the fleece that I will be using to experiment with natural plant-based dyes.  Razel is dark.  She will mature to a beautiful dark gray.  I can play with some dye with her fleece, but more than likely I'll just leave it as God intended.  Her fleece will be lovely on it's own.  They will need to be sheared next month and then the whole process of fleece washing, picking, carding, spinning, and dying will begin.  I plan on a nice long blog post and picture tutorial of that process when it comes. 
There is never a dull moment here and as spring approaches, life will get more and more busy.  It's okay though.  Spring also brings longer days, green grass, the first of the flowers, and new life.  I can't wait.   

The art of making soap.

So, we get asked all the time how soap is made.  Well, for starters there are two different methods you can use.  There is the cold-process and the hot-process method.  Cold-process is the tried and true, old-fashioned way your grandmother made soap.  This soap has to age 4-6 weeks before you can safely use it to make sure all the active lye is out.  More on what lye is later.  Hot-process is essentially the same, but it has a cooking step involved.  This cooking removes all the active lye and it is therefore safe to use once it hardens into a bar.  Both methods have strengths and weaknesses.  We actually use both methods depending on how quickly I need to have a batch of soap ready to go.  My friend Jayne over at Honeyrun Farm has put together a wonderful tutorial on how to make soap using the cold-process method. She has ever so kindly let me cross-post for you all to see.  Just click here!

Speaking of Honeyrun Farm, if you are looking for wonderful pure and raw honey exactly the way nature intended, please check out the wonderful products they have to offer.  Along with their honey they have bee pollen, lovely beeswax candles, as well as their own line of beautiful artisan soaps.  I can't recommend the Black Locust honey enough!

So, back to how to make soap!  Now that you've been able to see how the cold-process method works, I'll talk about the hot-process method.  You start out the same way as cold-process...you measure out the oils and get the lye measured and mixed.  Now here is where we change course.  The measured oils go into a standard kitchen crock pot set to "high".  Yes, a crock pot!  We use an 8 quart size crock pot because during the cooking phase the soap rises quite high up the sides of the pot.  The oils are heated until they are hot to the touch.  There really is no set temperature here.  You have quite a bit of give room, as long as they are hot.  At this point, you turn the crock pot to "low" and then slowly add the lye to the oil while mixing with the stick blender.  See, quite similar to the cold-process method so far!!  After the soap hits the trace/pudding stage, you simply put the lid on and then set a timer for 55 minutes.  Now, don't walk away!  As the soap heats and starts to cook, the soap starts to rise up the sides and fold over on itself.  If you don't watch out, it could cook up over the sides of the crock pot and then you have a royal mess on your hands...yes, I have don't it before!  It also starts to change colors from quite opaque to a more gel-like appearance.

Once the soap starts to rise to the top of the crock pot it is time to stir the soap.  This helps assure the soap cooks evenly and also keeps it from cooking over the edges of the crock pot!  I generally have to stir the soap 3 times during the cooking phase.  As it cooks the soap will thicken up and take on the look of a thick gel.  Here is a picture of the soap towards the end of it's 55 minute cooking time.

After the soap has finished cooking, it's time to add any botanicals, additives, and fragrance.  We add honey to all our soaps and we try very hard to stick to essential oils to fragrance our soaps.  This particular batch of soap is our Lemon-Poppyseed and you can see the little grey poppyseeds waiting to be mixed into the soap.  

Once you have mixed in all the additional goodies you want in the soap, it is time to put it into the mold. We use a loaf-style mold that we line with butchers paper lightly coated with sunflower oil.  This just keeps the soap from sticking to the paper as it cools.  Each of the recipes we use make more than will fit into the loaf mold so we also line small circular tubes that yield a nice little circular bar of soap.  

This is what a fully loaded mold ready to cool and harden up looks like.

At this point, I just let the soap sit in the mold for about 24 hours to make sure it's nice and hard before I remove it from the mold.  You can use it at any point now.  It is lye-free and safe to use.  Now that being said, we let it sit for a few days before we cut it into bars and then we like to let it set for another couple weeks once it is cut to dry out a bit more.  When soap is REALLY new it can have a slightly sticky feeling to it.  Plus, this extra aging time gives extra assurance that there is absolutely no lye left in the finished bar.  Here are a couple photos of finished soap that is ready to be cut and labeled.  

Handmade soaps are so beautiful!  The sky is the limit when it comes to fragrance options and additives. Even recipes for the soap itself...you can custom design your very own personalized soap if you like. Give it a try!