# Hot process liquid soap batter crubles



## Nao (Jan 28, 2017)

Hello! 
Today I was attempting  cold process liquid soap for the first time. The instructions I used suggested mixing KOH and water then pour over the oils and the heat from the lye solution would be enough to melt the oils. And you know it would probably have worked if I hadn't done this outside in the middle of the winter. I tried stick blending it together, decided that it needed some more heating to completly melt the oils and put the whole thing on the stovetop on lowest setting. 
   Rather than looking like the oils melted and incorporated with the lye solution it just thickened up. Then it when through a bunch of different stages before it ended up like in the picture, hard and crumbly. I kept it on the lowest heating for well over an hour but it dosn't  really melt together. 
   I dont know what to do now. I'm not sure if it reached trace properly or if that even matter in this case? Should I just increase the heat? Is it just dried out and needs some added water? 
   I zap-tested and ph-strip tested and the ph is way to high. 

My recipe was: 
250g coconut oil
15g castor oil
210g water
70g KOH 
1msk sugar
25g grated bar soap



I was going to use it as dish washing soap.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jan 28, 2017)

What was the pH and what should it be?

Where did you get the recipe?

What is the % of the KOH that you have? It should be written on the bottle/tub


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## Nao (Jan 28, 2017)

Someone on this forum wrote a quite extensive explanation on how she makes cp liquid soap along with recommedations depending on how you are going to use your soap. I formulated the recipe acordingly. 
Her thread:
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49852

I'm not an experienced soaper in any way but a pH of around 9 is what you usally want, no? Mine is 12. 
  The seller tould med the purity was 98-99% with I know can't  be true but I thought that It would be usable anyway, maybe that was'nt the case.


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## Susie (Jan 29, 2017)

OK, it is not difficult to convert this to HP liquid soap.  

First, you do not want 5% superfat for dish soap, so we need to increase your KOH and water to 74 g and 223 g, respectively to bring that superfat down to 0%.  (You don't want oils left on dishes.)

Second, get that mixture into a stainless steel pot or a crockpot so it can be cooked.  Yes, it means it has to come inside the house.

Third, if using a crockpot, turn it to high to start cooking.  If you are using a pot on the stove, cook on low.  If you do not get a thick paste soon, add a little water.  I would probably start with 25 g or so, add more if needed. 

Fourth, cook until your paste gets clearer spots where it is glossier.  You can start dilution then.

If you don't see that in a couple of hours, come back and let us know.  You can turn the heat off while you wait for someone to respond.  I have to go to work today, so it will be all day before I get back.  However, lots of folks make liquid soap, so you don't have to wait for me.

ETA:  You did use hand made soap that you grated, right?  If not, toss this out and start over.  You don't have to use grated soap, it just gets you to paste stage faster.


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## Nao (Jan 30, 2017)

I gave up on getting more answers after a couple of hours and tried to fix the soap anyway. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I felt that I couldn't have soap with active lye standing around for days or maybe weeks while waiting for an answer especially not with everybody else in the house poking around everywhere. 

So, what I did was adding 10% of additional oils thinking that maybe the lye actually was 98-99% purity as the seller told me and not 90% as I first assumed. But who knows, I got it from a seller on eBay. I also read that excess lye could make soap crumble. Either ways he additional oils didn't help much. 

Then I added water at a total of approximately 250ml, a little at a time. I also thought that after cooking for2-3 hours without the pH dropping I might as well neutralize it. I added about  2tsk citric acid in 50ml of water (I tried to measure it out by weight but my scale wasn't accurate enought) and brought  the pH down to 8-9. Zap-tested and pH-strip tested and it seemed OK. I then put the soap in glass jars and thought I would check on it again in a month. The consistency is similar to palm oil, maybe a little softer, but with some small hard lumps that I couldn't smooth out with the stickblender. 




Susie said:


> OK, it is not difficult to convert this to HP liquid soap.
> 
> First, you do not want 5% superfat for dish soap, so we need to increase your KOH and water to 74 g and 223 g, respectively to bring that superfat down to 0%.  (You don't want oils left on dishes.)
> 
> ...



I did use grated homemade soap, yes. I also don't want to argue with you who is clearly more experienced and knowledgable than me but I used summerbeemeadows calculator from the beginning and even re-run my recipe when I wrote this and all the numbers are correct and there should be 0% superfat. I don't know why you don't get the same numbers 

And the soap would not melt, it even burnt a little in the bottom but it refused to melt. At some point I measured the temperature of the soap but I can't remember if It had been allowed to cool for a while or how long. It measured 52C, should I have increased the temperature? 

I wonder, does such a ting as blending soap batter to much exist?  Because at one point, before I even made this thread, when I was cooking it on the stovetop it started to look a bit translucent in the bottom but then I started blending it it went totally opaque and hard. 

I don't know, I feel that I'm just rambling:headbanging:


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## Susie (Jan 30, 2017)

Nao said:


> I gave up on getting more answers after a couple of hours and tried to fix the soap anyway. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I felt that I couldn't have soap with active lye standing around for days or maybe weeks while waiting for an answer especially not with everybody else in the house poking around everywhere.



I, like the rest of us here, do not get paid to answer questions.  I, like everyone else, have a job and a life.  They take precedence over this forum, as much as I love it.  

If you are unable to have soap containing active lye sitting around for days, it is possible that making liquid soap is not for you.  Because lots of us have had to store soap paste (or even just emulsified liquids) for indefinite periods of time for one reason or another.  How is it you feel safe making bar soap?? 



Nao said:


> So, what I did was adding 10% of additional oils thinking that maybe the lye actually was 98-99% purity as the seller told me and not 90% as I first assumed. But who knows, I got it from a seller on eBay. I also read that excess lye could make soap crumble. Either ways he additional oils didn't help much.



OK, so not knowing what problem you were trying to fix, much less how to fix it, you just randomly decided to add additional oils...and you are now saying that did not help...

And, for the record, I would never, ever, ever buy lye from eBay.  Ever.



Nao said:


> Then I added water at a total of approximately 250ml, a little at a time. I also thought that after cooking for2-3 hours without the pH dropping I might as well neutralize it. I added about  2tsk citric acid in 50ml of water (I tried to measure it out by weight but my scale wasn't accurate enought) and brought  the pH down to 8-9. Zap-tested and pH-strip tested and it seemed OK. I then put the soap in glass jars and thought I would check on it again in a month. The consistency is similar to palm oil, maybe a little softer, but with some small hard lumps that I couldn't smooth out with the stickblender.



I am not sure what a tsk is, but if you are hoping to make soap with a pH lower than 9(point something, but I lack time to go look it up), you are not going to get it with homemade soap.  No matter what the pH strip says.  Soap will break into fatty acids floating on top of alkali liquid.

So why did you decide that you only needed 250 ml of additional water?



Nao said:


> I did use grated homemade soap, yes. I also don't want to argue with you who is clearly more experienced and knowledgable than me but I used summerbeemeadows calculator from the beginning and even re-run my recipe when I wrote this and all the numbers are correct and there should be 0% superfat. I don't know why you don't get the same numbers



Well, if you used this recipe:
"My recipe was: 
250g coconut oil
15g castor oil
210g water
70g KOH 
1msk sugar
25g grated bar soap"

In the SBM or SBM Advanced calculators, you have to be confused.  You see, both are only available in oz.



Nao said:


> And the soap would not melt, it even burnt a little in the bottom but it refused to melt. At some point I measured the temperature of the soap but I can't remember if It had been allowed to cool for a while or how long. It measured 52C, should I have increased the temperature?
> 
> *I wonder, does such a ting as blending soap batter to much exist? * Because at one point, before I even made this thread, when I was cooking it on the stovetop it started to look a bit translucent in the bottom but then I started blending it it went totally opaque and hard.
> 
> I don't know, I feel that I'm just rambling:headbanging:



Honey, at this point in time, blending the batter too much is the least of your problems.  However, opaque and hard is what we call paste stage.


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## Nao (Jan 31, 2017)

Susie said:


> I, like the rest of us here, do not get paid to answer questions.  I, like everyone else, have a job and a life.  They take precedence over this forum, as much as I love it.
> 
> If you are unable to have soap containing active lye sitting around for days, it is possible that making liquid soap is not for you.  Because lots of us have had to store soap paste (or even just emulsified liquids) for indefinite periods of time for one reason or another.  How is it you feel safe making bar soap??
> 
> ...




I am really sorry. It wasn't my intention at all to sound like I was complaining and I realise now that I should have expressed myself differently. I am very thankful for the time and effort you put into trying to help me.


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