cooking oil and fat

[tim_n]

I don't have a burner at the moment and I don't want to chuck it down the waste pipe.

What can I do with it? How do you strain it? how comes there's no commercial product for dealing with it or am I just blind?

Currently I'm chucking it in a mug, then using kitchen towels to mop it up then bunging them in the green waste bin.

Can it be composted? like that? or am I poluting the green bin supply!?

[contadina]

I reuse mine and most of my neighbours used olive oil to make soap by filtering it through some muslin first.

You could probably make wild bird feeders by adding seeds and nuts, soak newspapers with it and then use it as a bottom layer before mulching (to form a better barrier against weeds) or find out where your nearest cooking fuel recycling point is. http://www.livingfuels.co.uk/

[tim_n]

a lot of the problem seems to be draining the water off first, I thought about some sort of oil filter fitted with a coffee filter paper - but you've still got to dispose of the filter papers as well.

Ho hum. No recycling plants near me unfortunately.

[indy]

same as other here i make mine into bird food

[Crickleymal]

I made mine (a mixture of oil and fat) into soap using Mel's directions (a bit). Seems to work although we haven't used it much yet. But by heck did it stink when I made it.

[Potter's Farm]

I reuse mine and most of my neighbours used olive oil to make soap by filtering it through some muslin first.

How do you do this? Think it a great idea.

[contadina]

I'm guessing that you didn't mean how did i strain the oil, so instructions and a link to some lye calculators are here http://contadina.wordpress.com/2010/01/ ... -and-more/

[Potter's Farm]

Thanks Contadina, was really helpful.

[greenorelse]

It doesn't strike me as a good idea to put much cooking oil or fat on a compost heap all at once but, if you've several heaps on the go, you could spread it around.

[Green Aura]

You can make an oil lamp - we have a number dotted round the house against the occasional power cut. They're really bright and I've used all sorts of waste jars, wire and string etc to make them.

http://www.judyofthewoods.net/diy/lamp.html

[Chickie2378]

depends on the oil/fat your are using and what you are 'frying'.

I keep oil very easily in the fridge or in the oven until needed again. Use often or if changing over to say, frying fish, last time use.

I hope most are not just oil once? Can can easily be stored and used again and again.

[grahamhobbs]

It is the time of the year (perhaps getting a bit late but required again early in the new year) for putting grease around the trunks of your apple trees. Buying the stuff, and you want to use vegetable grease (mineral grease can damage the tree), is expensive but I've read that grease is oil that has been emulsified with another substance and soap is suggested as the main emulsifier. Are there any chemists out there that can suggest how this should be done and what soap should be used?

[seasidegirl]

Interesting ideas here - thanks.

What is bugging me at the moment is the increase in the price of cooking oil in the first place. Anyone else noticed this?

We get some nice cod now and again and I'm getting quite good at deep frying it in batter. You need a lot of oil but it has to go after the fish.

[Lillia]

You can make an oil lamp - we have a number dotted round the house against the occasional power cut. They're really bright and I've used all sorts of waste jars, wire and string etc to make them.

http://www.judyofthewoods.net/diy/lamp.html

Fantastic link...thank you

[DATA311]

We use an Actifry, it can prove to be expensive to buy, but I'm sure if you shop around, you should be able to pick them up at reasonable prices, we got ours for approx £80, but that was quite a while ago.
You use very little cooking oil during the cooking process, and 1ltr of oil lasts for ages, what you use is burnt off in the cooking process, therefore, no waste oil for disposal, and we find that it decreases the amount that you would digest say from using a deep fat fryer.
And if you look around, there is a myriad of recipes that you can do in the Actifry.