Ok, blimey crickey it works. It really works.
I left the fleece in for 8 days, until Wednesday, as it wasn’t smelling as much as I was expecting. It looked vile, brown with a kind of white scum on top:
and yes it smells. But then again they have just finished spraying manure on the field out the back and we have a turkey unit down the road that stinks to high heaven on days when the wind is in the right direction, so if it comes to playing top trumps on stinkiness FSM tank is a good third place but not a hands down winner. I wouldn’t recommend it if you have a lot of neighbours though or limited outdoor space …
I gave the feece a couple of rinses in rain water (which gave me water full of yummy goodness for my vegetable patch). Then I put some of it into a hand hot detergent soak for about half an hour and some of it I didn’t. Then I rinsed both until the water ran clean. And this is what I got:
Pretty clean eh. The detergent soak was definitely cleaner and less greasy. But I can say that I now fully understand what “in the grease” means. Its clean but still has some lanolin, and has slightly sticky feel. Nothing like as much as before. I might try a slightly hotter detergent soak on smaller bits when I want to use it. I’ve got one half of the second Massam in the tank. Will see it it gets stronger as we go. I also don’t think it really saves that much on rinsing water but definitely saves on washing and heating water.
Will definitely keep using it.