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At least one large mesh bag
As large a pot as you can safely pick up when it is full of very hot water, any finish but non-stick is suitable
Dawn or any other dish detergent you usually use, or Orvus paste (sodium laurel sulthate, available in many horse supply stores)
A doffer, pocket comb, pet rake or similar sturdy tool. Pin brushes or any doffer whose teeth are more like a wool card than packing staples are too delicate to be effective.
A Rubbermaid dish tub is helpful, any fairly shallow bucket that will fit in your sink will do, it makes rinsing easier.
If you have a garden, four to six buckets are helpful.

You can save out your scour and rinse water to pour around your plants. Wait at least overnight to let the water cool and do not pour directly over foliage. I normally use Orvus, but have had no obvious trouble with dish detergent in my scour water, the plants seem to appreciate the nutrients and dirt in the water. Just pour each batch of water into each bucket, averaging the buckets' dirt and detergent content.

You will get a lot of advice, some of it is contradictory. This is based on my own experience. Wool grease content can vary from over 50% of the weight of the raw fleece to around 25% and is usually related to how fine the wool is. That is, merino is extremely fine wool and extremely greasy; karakul is coarse and not terribly greasy. However, this is not always the case and some finewool such as Shetland or Churro can be low grease and dangerously easy to felt. Crossbred sheep can also show this.

I believe combs will work only if you've taken an all day workshop to get good safe habits and if you have a long lock wool to work with. The combs can be dangerous and they are more expensive than a flicker or a hair comb. Carding alone will not get rid of vegetable matter, debris or neps (tiny felted balls which pull out of wool yarn with garment wear). You also risk damage to your cards if you try to card raw fleece and you will make your cards extremely dirty because of the dirt in the fleece and the dirt attraction of the grease.

Dawn or any good dish detergent or Orvus paste (available from a feed/horse supply place) are a good way to scour wool. Soap and Woolite will not get your wool clean, they cannot remove the grease.

The following works very well for most fleeces. Use a flicker or doffer (small, sturdy hand held multi-clawed device which costs about $20), a metal human hair comb (about $2) or a pet rake to open the raw locks of fleece. This is a tedious, rather grubby process. Put a towel down to protect an indoor floor; you might want to wear an apron. The grease and dirt will rub off onto your hands too, but easily washes off. Take about a thumb to two fingers' thickness of wool; this varies with every fleece and can vary with weather too. Hold a flicker claws up. Whichever tool you use this should not be hard work. If you are working hard you will stress your wrists and could damage the wool. Start at the very tip and let the weight of the fiber drop it into the claws or teeth of whatever you are using. Work your way up the lock this way; if you have long hair think of combing it out when wet. When you are past half way turn the lock around and work your way up from the other end. Hold the resulting fiber mass to the light; you should see no clumps or neps. Throw away the stuff you've combed out of the locks, the most it would be useful for is quilt batting, and that only if it is a coarser fleece. You may also be able to mulch it.

Flicking this way will remove almost all vegetable matter, short cuts and most of the really dirty ruined ends and tags will also fall out. Put the resulting fiber in a mesh sweater or lingerie bag. You can fill this bag pretty full, the wool is quite fluffed at this stage. The amount you put in the bag will vary. Merino, the most greasy wool, should be smaller amounts – perhaps 4 oz or so. You can fill and even somewhat stuff a bag full of Karakul, Romney or any coarser wool. Your first bag of a fleece should be smaller until you are certain what you are working with; these are the extremes.

Bring a big pot of water to a full galloping boil. Any pot but a "non-stick" one will do. The "non-sticks" DO stick well to the mesh bags and melt large holes in them. Turn off the water and drop in about 1/4 cup of Orvus paste or 1/8 cup dish detergent. This will vary depending on how much wool and how greasy it is in each bag. Use a stick or something to melt the glob and stir it into the water, then drop your bag in. Push it down and leave it for about 1/2 to 3/4 hour.

Turn on your hot tap; it should be too hot to put your hand in. Fill a basin on one side of the sink. Lift your bag of wool out of the scour , but do not drain completely. About two fingers' thick rope of water still draining is as far as you should go so that the wool does not compact down. Drop it into the first rinse and ready the 2nd rinse, same full hot tap water. When the 2nd rinse is finished filling, turn the bag over, lift it out, drain a bit more, about one finger's thickness. Third rinse - the same. By now the rinse water is dramatically cleaner, but still very cloudy and with a noticeable oil slick on the top.

Now start adding some cool water to your rinse. With each successive rinse bring the water temperature down. When it is still pretty hot, but not painful, open the bag and gently move the wool around with it submerged so the water supports the fiber and keeps it from matting down. The center is probably holding some of the hotter, dirtier water. You will notice the water is not as greasy feeling, and the wool feels much less slimy. As the temperature, grease and Orvus/Dawn content drops so does the risk of felting. When the water is clear and cool, with no noticeable oil-slick on it, take your bag out, squash it to drain the water, if it is cool you can get fairly enthusiastic about this. Roll the mass in two towels and walk on it. Then lay the fiber out to dry. I made a rack out of 1/4" hardware cloth tie wrapped to 1x1 pieces of wood, but anything will do including the floor. Fluff the fiber if it is very squashed. The wool should be dry in a couple of days at the most. If you have a ceiling fan, this is ideal.

Once you have used this very hot water, never use water this temperature again on the wool or you will make it dry and harsh. It is safe for scouring because the grease will protect it, but never again. You can use warm or tepid water with a very little amount of dish detergent or Orvus for normal washing. A final rinse with vinegar water seems to keep wool and silk soft, whether this is psychological or not I can't say. I would be reluctant to use human hair products on wool, simply because our hair is a very different texture than wool and it might gum up the wool.

Specialty wools: Merino is an extremely specialized breed. The scour water MUST come to a full galloping boil before turning off and adding Orvus or dish detergent. Scour in smaller batches than any other fleece – fill your bag no more than half full and be sure the pot of water is large enough to move this wool around. Let the scour bath stand no more than half an hour and make certain your first few rinses are extremely hot. Merino is not likely to felt, provided you do not agitate, because the extreme grease protects the fiber. However you must be very sure you have gotten the wool clean because if you have not the remaining grease will, over a few months, oxidize and form a stiff, sticky coating which is extremely hard to remove; in fact you must over scour your wool to remove this and the resulting fiber feels more like cotton than wool. No other breed does this, in my experience.

Shetland, if not obviously a double coated animal: treat the same except that the wool is delicate, when flicking be very gentle; do not rip through the ends the way you can with most other wools. To avoid felting, do not drain the first 2 or 3 times - just lift out of the bath and dump into the clean water.

Most 'old breeds' should be treated this way, they usually are lower grease than the modern breeds and can felt if allowed to squash down. They come clean quite quickly though.

Karakul: flicking does little good and may pull out the colored hair textured wool in a roan fleece. Just take a fair amount of the fleece, stuff it into the bag, and scour . This will take longer to dry because the wool wasn't fluffed before scouring.

Double coated breeds such as Churro: A double coated breed has fine, soft undercoat and long coarse guard hairs and they usually are low grease as well. Individual locks may look like a paintbrush, thick base, very fat part way down and tapering to a point. If it is obvious that this is a double coated fleece disturb the lock structure as little as possible when scouring and drying. When dry, pick up a lock by the root and gently pull out the longer guard hairs. With a little practice they will slip right out and fluff up the under coat that might be a bit matted from the scouring. The two coats will feel distinctly different. Treat like Shetland, do not drain the bag of wool until the water is fairly clear so there is less danger of matting.

Llama, alpaca, camel and other exotics should not be scoured. Put the fiber in a bag, drop the bag into reasonably warm water laced with some detergent or Orvus; about half the amount you would use to scour. Be careful not to agitate, you can open the mass of fiber by leaving the bag in the water and sticking your hands in. If your fiber stinks or the water does not come clean, rinse several times and if it is not coming clean add a bit of your cleaning substance and continue washing and rinsing. Angora rabbit, dog and cat are very prone to felting; treat in small batches, spin raw if at all possible and wash gently after they are spun.

Angora goat or kid: do not bother to flick. Work with smaller batches. Treat like merino because the grease is very hard to remove. Some people use a little washing soda in the scour . I have tried it, but after ruining a batch I stopped - it is better to scour smaller batches and avoid burning the fiber.

If you are worried about clogging your pipes: Pour your wash and rinse water through a mesh strainer to catch debris. I have never found any, the wool holds together surprisingly, but I did worry about the apartment neighbors. If you live in an apartment this also keeps you from overwhelming the downstairs neighbors' pipes since apartments often have smaller pipes. When you're done with the wool, follow the last rinse with some Very Hot Water and Dawn, pine oil, or some other serious grease cutter. (Not on the wool! down the pipes while they're still hot from all the rinsing) Or, use one of the lye clog removing Liquid Plumber clones in a reduced dosage. If you are on a septic tank... ask a local plumber.

Wool Scouring