Soap Making 101

Every year I look for new things to give friends and family members as gifts not only at Christmastime, but also other occasions or just because. This is how I discovered the art of making my own soap!

Making soap has been one of the most fun and rewarding activities that I've ever done. I haven't tried any recipes with lye yet, but I'm hoping to accomplish that this coming holiday season. Instead, this blog post will focus on melt and pour soap making. It's a very simple activity that you can personalize in almost limitless ways.

The most recent batch of soap I made contained natural citrus scents and fresh herbs gathered from my garden. I used a 1/2 round bar soap mold and clear glycerin soap base (Click Here to view the soap base).

The first batch I made contained lavender I collected and dried from my garden. I added the dried lavender to my food processor along with a few teaspoons of water to create a puree. Then I mixed it into the melted soap base along with a few drops of color. It turned out beautiful and smelled heavenly.

The second batch I made contained lemon and orange peel. I simply peeled a lemon and orange (I added the fruit to a fresh pitcher of water for my consumption while I was making soap) placed them into my food processor and blended until they were fine particles. Then I added them to my melted soap base along with some color. Again the soap smelled amazing and turned out great!

I ended up giving some to my neighbor, my parents and in-laws and sending some to work with my husband for his co-workers. I still have a bar sitting on my bathroom sink that my son is slowly but surely diminishing! The entire process took less time than making the 10-15 minute drive to the mall and purchasing soap. It is so easy and is a gift that comes from the heart!

We have a complete soap making kit at Make Your Own that has everything you need to get started. ( Click Here to view the kit) We also have a wide variety of scents, colors and soap molds. ( Click Here to view our entire soap making inventory)

I hope you try your hand at soap making! I'm so glad I did! If you do decide to try it out - post your recipes, tips or tricks below in the comments sections!! I'm always looking for new stuff to add to my soap or new recipes to try!

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Up Next: Making Fruit Wine

Don't throw out that old wine...make vinegar!!

In the past year we here at Make Your Own went on a mission to figure out what to do with leftover wine. Aside from dumping it down the drain and reusing the bottle for our next batch of wine there really wasn't too much we could find that would be suitable for 'old' wine.

Then we discovered the art of making your own vinegar! It's literally the simplest thing I've done to date that produces the most flavorful product with little to no effort!

First, you start with some vinegar culture, which is often referred to as the Mother Culture. You can find cultures for just about any vinegar you'd like to make. Here we focus on red and white wine vinegar, but I have seen cultures out there for cider vinegar, malt vinegar, etc.

Once you have your cultures you need to find a wide mouth glass jar. You can use a gallon jar or a smaller pickle type jar, but it has to be wide mouth so the oxygen can convert the wine to vinegar. Once you have your jar you add the culture and your wine. Cover it with cheese cloth and let it sit in a warm area. In as little as four weeks you have converted your wine to vinegar!

When we first started making our own vinegar here in the store we tried many different methods. The instructions that came with the culture we ordered stated that the vinegar had to be placed in an area that remained between 80 and 90 degrees consistently. That made me frown and scratch my head. Where in the heck can you find a place in your home that's consistently 80 to 90 degrees? I ignored that part of the instructions and still yielded great results.

We first tested making the vinegar in gallon jars. Once the conversion was complete I took some home and ate it on salad and used it in many dishes. After we successfully kept that batch going we switched to smaller jars, which yields a much more concentrated vinegar. It's still delicious, but you have to add some water to dilute it. All in all we tried several ways to 'screw the vinegar up', but after everything we did the vinegar kept on brewing with delicious results.

 

In the kit we sell at Make Your Own at Home we provide you with the equipment to make up to 1 gallon each of white and red wine vinegar. Click here to view the kit We include smaller jars for conversion as well as cultures and cheese cloth. A detailed instruction leaflet comes with it as well as some recipes for your 'made-at-home' vinegar! We even include a little booklet with vinegar tips and tricks!

Making your own vinegar is not only easy it's tasty! Add some fancy inexpensive bottles and fresh herbs and you've got some great homemade gifts as well!

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Next up: Making soap...easy as 1...2...3

You can make your own soda pop?

Really? You can make your own soda pop right at home?

The answer is YES! You can make your own soda pop and it's so easy! When Make Your Own opened we focused on kits we could produce here in house for our customers. We researched and researched some more then we tested and tested some more until we came up with recipes that had the best flavor and were easy to follow!

Currently, we have 2 different types of kits. One is a Root Beer and Birch Beer kit and the other is a Soda Pop kit that makes Orange and Strawberry soda. You can find them on our site! Click Here

When we started testing recipes we were astounded by how much sugar is actually in soda pop! In our recipes there are 2 cups of sugar per gallon of soda. Now, in order to carbonate the beverage naturally you need a small amount (6-8 Tablespoons per gallon) of sugar. In some commercially produced soda beverages there is a lot more than 2 cups per gallon of sugar.

If you're looking for a kit that reminds you of the Root Beer you had when you were a kid-then by all means use the 2 cups of sugar per gallon of soda because it really does yield great tasting results! It's great as a treat, but that leaves a large portion of the population that can not consume that much sugar (or prefer not to) without a recipe to follow. I started delving into sugar substitutes. What I found was both shocking and exciting.

Obviously, the news lately has focused on how bad artificial sweeteners are. So when I started my testing and research I steered clear of the artificial sugars. In my search I did discover Stevia though. Stevia is a sugar substitute that's all natural and comes from a plant. In most forms it looks like sugar and it also performs like sugar, but it's much sweeter with no calories or carbohydrates!

This was an amazing discovery for me! I found that making a gallon of soda pop with just 6-8 Tablespoons of sugar produced a very yucky tasting soda, but it was carbonated. Now...add in the Stevia after you've carbonated your soda and you have a great tasting, low calorie beverage that you won't feel guilty drinking!

So I would suggest checking out either of our kits and make a batch of soda for yourself!! The kits come complete with everything you need aside from empty soda bottles and water! They produce great tasting soda and are simple to follow. Simple enough that the whole family can be involved in the soda making process!!

Up next:
Making your own gourmet vinegar at home! It's DELISH!!!

Let's Make Cheese!

So, we took a little longer than 2 weeks to update, but the cheese making process turned out to be a little more challenging than we first thought. Just a minor setback that we solved, but the end product was delish! I'm going to hand it off to Donna who has recently become our resident cheese maker! She made two batches of mozzarella cheese. She has not attempted the ricotta yet, but that will be sometime in the future I can assure you! Without further ado....Donna:

(Don't forget to check our site for all of your cheese making needs: Make Your Own at Home )

*waves* Hi! I'm Donna and I love to bake and cook, so when we received a Mozzarella & Ricotta Cheese Making Kit in the store, I just had to try it!  Everyone loves cheese, especially mozzarella cheese!  I admit it was a bit intimidating, could I really make cheese and what would it taste like?  I was up for the challenge!

The most important ingredient and biggest factor in making cheese is your milk.  I used grocery store bought, whole milk that was not ultra pasteurized.  Unfortunately, it did not form the curds.  It looked like something stringy. Not to give up, I tried it again and here are my tips:

v Do NOT use any milk that says ‘ultra pasteurized’.  It simply will not work.

v If you have whole milk that is processed locally and shipped to your store, that’s the milk to get!  Don’t go for the store brand because it has the best price – you need the freshest milk you can get.    

v What did not come with the kit is something called “calcium chloride” and I recommend getting it if you plan on using store bought milk. (Yes, we do sell it at Make Your Own! Calcium Chloride )

v Don’t be tempted to peek into your pot while the curds are forming. Be patient and wait until the time is up.

For the second batch I added the calcium chloride. 

When I first checked my curds, I gently pushed down on the edge to see if I had a separation of curds and whey. Wow! What a difference!  I had curds!  Check my curd pictures.  The first one is the curd cut in cubes and the second I moved them around so you can see them better.  It was so exciting to see that I actually had CURDS!  

I followed the rest of the directions without a hitch and the cheese was amazing!  I think it tasted better cold but I understand that some people like it warm.  It’s up to you, give it a try and see what you think.

Keep in mind this is not store bought cheese so it will not look like that brick of cheese.  You form it to how you want it.  I just left it in chunk form and we ate pieces from it.  One final note, this is fresh cheese - which means that there are no preservatives in it, so keep that in mind - unless you eat it as fast as we did!

Got a question?  Leave it in the comments section below! Until next time!!

Thanks Donna!! Be sure to check out our site for a variety of Cheese Kits and Cheese Making Supplies!

Up Next: Making your own Root Beer and Soda Pop

Doing it Yourself!

Hi folks! Welcome to our brand new blog coming straight to you from Make Your Own! My name is Jessica and I run a small retail store in Lockport, NY specializing in the fine art of doing it yourself! We are appropriately called Make Your Own while our website is Make Your Own at Home

It's no secret that the American economy isn't at its peak. Financial outlooks from many professionals are bleak at best. There really isn't a better time to start the ancient art of learning to make your own at home. The word 'own' encompasses many things, but here we will be discussing mainly food, drink and some household items that you can easily make from home. 

We as Americans have lost our way in keeping up with family traditions and passing on our knowledge and recipes to the younger generation. I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where my mother stayed home and lovingly prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for us everyday. She was thrifty and frugal and passed many of her tips and secrets onto me. 

Personally, this economy and the gas prices have scared the living daylights out of me. I've recently focused on getting back to my roots and dragging out my old cookbooks and household books to save money and pass as much onto my son as I can. Most recently, I've embarked on the cheese making process. Surprisingly it's quite easy and can be fun! 

In closing I'd like to welcome you to our blog. Feel free to follow us or subscribe to our posts! We will be posting hopefully once every two weeks at the least. Each time we'll discuss a new kit or item that we've recently tried out. Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave them here and we'll answer the best that we can! In the meantime check out our website Make Your Own at Home

Thanks for reading! 

Jessica

General Manager

Make Your Own

Up next: Making Mozzarella & Ricotta cheeses! Stay tuned!