I followed an internet article about homemade inductors. I cut up steel wool into slivers, then mixed them with silicone adhesive, then packed the slurry into a short length of soda straw. I wound it a couple hundred times with copper wire. I think it's about 200 uH from its behavior in circuits.
As for saturation current, I'm pretty sure it's very low. Compared to soft iron, steel has worse permeability / retentivity / coercivity. Watching the oscilloscope waveforms, I recall seeing current ramp up during the first part of the cycle, then a vertical drop just as the second half of the cycle begins the ramp down. I think the vertical drop indicates the inductor generates less Amperes than the amount that went into it. In other words, saturation loss.
I suppose saturation would improve if I started with a larger slurry of steel slivers, but I cannot be certain how far magnetic flux penetrates through my inductor. Perhaps it has to do with the length-vs-diameter of the soda straw. Or distribution of wire turns. Etc.