Let's start here, with Hercules' very dirty fleece from last spring. Starting with one pound, we set up the bath.
We kept it warm and in a few days it began to ferment, developing a 'slight white film'.
We removed the fleece from the dirty, foul-smelling bath now full of 'the natural detergent' suint, 'primarily potassium salts' secreted by a gland in the sheep's skin.
Amazingly, the fleece appears very white even before rinsing.
After a quick wash in a weak detergent bath and two rinses (just to be sure that the lanolin had been removed), the fleece is beautiful; clean, soft and yes, as Judith says, "the smell washes right out of the wool".
It has worked so well that pound #3 is now soaking in that same 'fermented suint cleanser'. According to the article you can "Use the fermented water over and over; the more you use it, the better it gets. Don't worry that it looks dirty - use the water until, as they say in Montana, it is too thick to swim in and too thin to plow."
VERY COOL!!
