It smells like Lye Soap, but not meat greases. I save all of the following greases and oils: Bacon Grease Hamburger drippings from my grill pan Ground Beef grease Shortening and/or oils used for frying meats. Oils used for any kind of fast frying (donuts, french fries, etc). Meat greases rendered from roasts (beef, pork, etc) and so forth. I don't fry very often, but I still save the oils and grease. It adds up faster than you might think! NEVER dump grease and oils down drains. Not only does this stop up sewer lines and septic systems, but it is a major cost to the public in city sewage systems repairs and maintenance and sewage processing plants. It pollutes the land and water systems...kills fish and other wildlife, creates algae in water ways, and more. Awful stuff. The chemical action in the soap making process removes the smelly odors of meat greases. Make sure you strain it well to remove all the bits and pieces. I just use my kitchen sieve. The soap will not LOOK like commercial stuff. Those are mostly detergents. This soap is wonderful. Leaves your skin soft. Gentle on clothes. The two commercial soaps that I know that are REAL SOAP are Castile and Ivory (or Ivory used to be real soap anyway). For JUST hand soap, you can add a little glycerin (found at all RX drug store counters), and omit the Kerosene. OPT. - Kerosene is not necessary for the recipe to work, but it makes the laundry soap better. Boosts the cleaning power. As mentioned above, you can add coconut oil (and/or other fancy oils) to make it more sudsy and feel softer. But, the purpose of this topic is HOW TO USE old MEAT GREASE that you should not put in your compost. There are all kinds of soap recipes on the internet. I've tried a few. The thing I object to in these NEW recipes is the cost and waste. Those fancy oils are EXPENSIVE. Cheaper to buy commercial soap and be done with it. Hope this explains my purpose in posting this topic: ***Recycling old meat grease rather than throwing it into the garbage that will go into land fills*** We can greatly reduce the amount of trash and garbage that goes into land fills (millions of tons of garbage dumped on the land and in the ocean )just in America) just by practicing the three "R's" of waste management for good conservation - REDUCE -> REUSE -> RECYCLE -> Don't waste food! Use those leftovers and compost your kitchen garbage. Many household items that most Americans tend to just toss in the garbage daily can be REDUCED, REUSED, and RECYCLED, including clothing, buttons, zippers, snaps, hook and eyes, and other items just in our households alone. Good conservation practices not only saves the Earth by preventing pollution and conserves our natural resources, but it will save each of us MONEY, not only collectively as a society, but in each household! There is an old Mormon saying: "A woman can throw it out the window with a teaspoon faster than a man can pitch it in the front door with a shovel." - Brigham Young, 1860. This is so true. ~Annie

Bacon, and most pork products can thaw and be refrozen. Because pork fat is very stable, I have actually used previously frozen pork fat in sausages, and once stuffed, they get refrozen again. Bacon is cured, and will not harm it if it was thawed and refozen again. Unless the freezer has very poor insulation, a 48 hour loss of cold will just thaw a few things on the uppermost sheves. Here, I put the fats and sausages, as well as any previously cooked mixtures like meat pies with raw crusts. My recent loss of freezer cold, was probably almost 2 days as well, and many things were still quite firm. Shrimp can be cooked and then refrozen after being cooked. If you have space, add a couple of water filled plastic gallon jugs to the upper shelves. As once drozen they act as cold sources and that will help keep the other, lower items, cooler for a while longer.Butter will keep fine if partiall thawed an refrozen. Keep it tightly wrapped however as it can soak up odd smells. If the veggies were just slight thawed, they should also be OK. They aren't cooked yet, so they will be fine. But because of moisture produced when thawed, they might clump up as solid bricks after being refrozen. You can imagine if this were a 3 day or more power outage. My parents went though that, until I got them a 4000 watt backup generator. Luckily, I have only had to use it once since then.

Yes, you can. It will be okay. It may loose a little quality in flavor and texture, but with spicy recipies like chili or spaghetti sauce the difference is negligible. It is safe. I usually prefer to freeze the meat in cartons and then add it to a recipe I'm assembling for serving the same day. That assembly may well include thawing out some beans, rice, or spaghetti sauce or whatever and concocting some dish from it all.

I believe as long as you have heated it to boiling at some point, then you can refreeze. Dances.