# Questions (wool processing)he's



## naura (Mar 21, 2012)

I got a free icelandic fleece and I want to learn everything I can from it. So far I have successfully washed it without felting (holla!) and picked through large pieces of VM.

Is bringing the lanolin to a useable state something I can do in my MIL's kitchen


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## naura (Mar 21, 2012)

My phone is acting crazy.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

People have been rendering lanolin for a very long time. Do you have a recipe?


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## lexierowsell (Dec 10, 2013)

http://m.wikihow.com/Extract-Lanolin-from-Sheep's-Wool

Seems like something to try!


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## hotzcatz (Oct 16, 2007)

Seems like an awful lot of boiling, though. Do they factor in fuel costs when doing this?

Does lanolin float or sink? You'd think you'd be able to push the wool into hot water to get the lanolin to either float or sink off and then skim either the water or lanolin off.


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## naura (Mar 21, 2012)

Do you think I can boil the yucky liquid from the first wash instead of boiling the wool


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## Skandi (Oct 21, 2014)

I've seen it done with boiling, and then skimming it off the top when cold. I'm sure someone here will know exactly how though


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

Why add salt. Salt makes the water hotter, is this why? I think you&#8217;d want to use the fleece that is the cleanest, or at least the cleanest part with little soil and VM.


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Icelandic isn't known to be a very greasy fleece. You may want to find a fleece that has lots more lanolin in it. One from a "meat breed" that has a shorter fleece that you may not want to use for spinning. Most farmers shear before butchering and many toss the fleeces in the compost or garbage. You could get some of those and just boil the heck out of them and it doesn't really matter.


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

I agree that the Icelandic does not contain much lanolin. At least the two I did recently didn't. I read about the process when I was doing a couple Suffolk fleeces and there is a lot of boiling in addition to making sure the fleece is free from most VM ie: poo. The Suffolk wool had enough in it but I decided too much time was involved.


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## naura (Mar 21, 2012)

Thanks y'all! Yea I will pass on that part of my fleece journey. 

For now. 

/evil laff


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