# How much oils to put in 5lb mold?



## Teahouse (Apr 6, 2015)

Hi all! I was wondering how much oils do I use if I was using a 5lb mold? Not adding the lye water contents? I know that 5lb mold is 80 oz.  So minus a few oils weight so I could add the lye solution...would 65 oz be the magic number? 

How do you calculate these things?


----------



## shunt2011 (Apr 6, 2015)

My 5 lb mold I use 58 oz of oils.  It fills it to the top with a bit to spare.  I use the BB 5 lb silicone liner in a wood mold my husband built for it to fit in.

There is a formula in the sticky section of the CP forum.  You take length X width X height of pour, that number X .40


----------



## Seawolfe (Apr 6, 2015)

56 ounces of oils gives me 5.4 lbs of soap with the default water on soap calc. Between what gets left in the pots and evaporation after cure, this nets me about 5 lbs of useable soap. 

Just play on soap calc, put in an amount of oils close to 50 ounces, select your preferred water amount and any single oil as 100% and hit the calculate and then view recipe button, the next page gives you total batch weight. Keep changing the total oil amount on the first page and hitting calc and vie buttons till you have the batch total that you want.


----------



## Dorymae (Apr 6, 2015)

My 5 lb mold actually holds a bit over 6lbs of soap when I do high tops. I use 4 lbs of oils. Flat tops are just under 6lbs, but I do fill to the top.

I use the same liner as shunt.


----------



## Cactuslily (Apr 7, 2015)

I also make notes, so I know how much to input next time for the mold if I'm pouring at same height.


----------



## Teahouse (Apr 7, 2015)

thank you everyone for your responses. I also have the BB wooden mold and silicon lining. 
I have been playing with the soap calculator on BB and on the CP site. i still haven't decided which one is more accurate and my favorite yet.


----------



## dixiedragon (Apr 7, 2015)

Water is roughly 1/3 of a soap recipe, and 1 oz of liquid by weight is roughly 1 oz of liquid by volume. This isn't good enough for calculating lye, but it's good enough for calculating volume.

So, for an 80 oz mold, a batch that is 53 ounces of oil. I'd probably scoot it down a bit b/c  you may not want to fill your mold to the tippy-top. I'd do 50 b/c that's a nice round number.


----------



## fsanderson (Apr 13, 2015)

I currently use the 5lb Brambleberry mold and I use 50 oz of oil. It gives me room to work without making a big mess. You could increase it up to 8 oz like shunt2011 said and that should be perfect if you want a slightly taller bar. Good luck!


----------

