I've been putting this job off, but it couldn't wait much longer as winter is coming.
A month or so ago I filled a 50 gallon plastic drum with old wool fleeces I picked up from a farmer for basically free, and covered it with well water and left it to undergo a natural process called suint fermentation.
Instead of using loads of hot water and detergents to scour the wool, you let microbes and time do the job.
The down side is that it really, really stinks. And today was the day I dove into the tub and pulled the wool out, rinsed it a few times, and then hung it out to dry.
Here is the fetid nastiness. It's grass, sticks, poop, urine, sweat, and hair grease (lanolin) all well fermented by some anaerobic bacteria. It smells worse than it looks.
I fished all the wool out, wrung out as much nastiness as I could, and then took it over to another barrel full of fresh water so that I could rinse it.
I did all the wool in two batches, rinsing each batch twice.
Here is all the wool, hanging up on the fence to dry:
Most of the smell is gone, and apparently once dry the smell will go away completely.
All that gross water makes excellent fertilizer and so the fruit trees and berry bushes all got a good fall feeding.
One thing I immediately noticed compared to the hot water / detergent method, is the wool is much cleaner. There are no tangles, no residual grease balls, and the wool fibers separate out by themselves which will make cleaning much, much easier.
Here is the fetid nastiness. It's grass, sticks, poop, urine, sweat, and hair grease (lanolin) all well fermented by some anaerobic bacteria. It smells worse than it looks.
I fished all the wool out, wrung out as much nastiness as I could, and then took it over to another barrel full of fresh water so that I could rinse it.
I did all the wool in two batches, rinsing each batch twice.
Here is all the wool, hanging up on the fence to dry:
Most of the smell is gone, and apparently once dry the smell will go away completely.
All that gross water makes excellent fertilizer and so the fruit trees and berry bushes all got a good fall feeding.
One thing I immediately noticed compared to the hot water / detergent method, is the wool is much cleaner. There are no tangles, no residual grease balls, and the wool fibers separate out by themselves which will make cleaning much, much easier.