Making Soap

As if I have nothing else to do,we are going to try making soap.We bought a hind quarter of beef from our friends who have the organic 200 acre dairy cow & turkey farm -www.glowinglogscabin.com- & Cathleen said if I wanted the beef tallow,the butcher would save it for me & it would cost us nothing.She was not going to have time to make soap,& proceded to show me the laundry detergent she made & gave me recipes from the grit mag for making it & hand soap.So,I thought,what the hay,I`ll try it,if I didn`t make soap I could render the fat for suet cakes for the birds for the winter.I was unprepared for the amt.of fat though when we picked it up.Two big ,bigger than garbage bags,full of fat.We had to freeze some of it in our fridge in the garage.We bought the lye from the butcher also,he said someone had come in the week before & bought a whole case of it.I believe if I were him,I would be asking for id`s & such,I`m sure lye in that quanity couldn`t be put to any good use.But,who knows?Anyhow,these are pics of the fat & my dh using an applesauce making tool for getting every last drop of cooked fat drained in the pan.We bought scent & coloring from Michael`s & with the lye have about $25 in it.I will let you know how much soap we get.We didn`t cook it all off,some is still in the freezer ,it took us 2 days to cook this batch down.