Can lye go bad?

I have been doing a few very small test batches to see which recipes work well for me. Yesterday I made three 16oz batches with no scent, no color, no additives and this morning I did three more.

One of my batches from yesterday suddenly heated dramatically to the point that I threw it in the freezer for an hour. The lye seemed to take forever to dissolve ... more than a minute or two. That batch turned out extremely hard and brittle. It didn't cut ... it was more like it shattered. The surface has a grainy, sandy feel.

The other two batches worked fine from beginning to end.

This morning I was reworking the same recipes and on the first batch my lye created a solid layer on the bottom of my water pitcher. It reminded me of that crystallized layer of pancake syrup you get in the bottom of the pitcher.

I was able to sort of break it up and get it dissolved. I used a strainer when I added it to my oils and everything preceded fine. There were no residue in the strainer.

Except ... about an hour later it was getting very hot and had developed a darkish-brown spot in the center of the batch, about 2" across. Now, about eight hours later that spot is a little paler but is now 4" across.

Both problem batches were from the same recipe, but I think this has to do with the lye and the odd solid layer in the bottom of the water .... ?

Help!

Crisco, new with palm at 25%, 4.5 oz.
Olive oil at 40%, 7.2 oz.
Coconut oil at 30%, 5.4 oz.
Castor oil at 5%, .9 oz.

SoapCalc.net gave me a reading of water at 6.8oz. and lye at 2.56 oz.

Thank you.

OH, and, of course, my camera battery is dead or I would post a pic.

Was the lye from Essential Depot by any chance?

Kamahido said:

Was the lye from Essential Depot by any chance?

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Yes ??? How did you know that ???

I had a batch of their lye do the exact same thing to a batch of my Eucalyptus Soap. Ruined all 24 bars. Now I buy my lye from Bulk Apothecary in 50 lb pails.

I was recently reading about someone else having the same kind of weird issue with their ED lye, but I can't recall where I saw it, wouldn't you know it. If I find it, I will post a link.

Re: the darkish-brown growing in the center of your soap- I wouldn't worry so much about that- it sounds like your soap was going through the gel stage, which is a normal stage of saponification. I like to gel all my soaps, and it (gel) starts out as a small darkish spot in the middle which spreads all the way out to the edges (provided that the soap generates enough heat), before returning back to a normal color as it cools. It sounds like your soap went through what is known as a partial gel since it didn't generate enough heat for it to go all the way to the edges. Not to worry, though- there's nothing bad about partially gelled soap other than it may look uneven ,color-wise, for awhile.


Have you zap-tested any of your soaps yet, especially the one that shattered? (sounds lye-heavy)

Edited to add: lol, Kamahido and I were posting at the same time. Yours must have been the post I was reading.


IrishLass

Just to clarify, that batch shattered but passed a zap test. Haven't seen anything like it before or since. I also read at the time of other people having trouble with Essential Depot's lye so I switched suppliers and it has not reoccurred.

Kamahido said:

I had a batch of their lye do the exact same thing to a batch of my Eucalyptus Soap. Ruined all 24 bars. Now I buy my lye from Bulk Apothecary in 50 lb pails.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

IrishLass said:

I was recently reading about someone else having the same kind of weird issue with their ED lye, but I can't recall where I saw it, wouldn't you know it. If I find it, I will post a link.

Re: the darkish-brown growing in the center of your soap- I wouldn't worry so much about that- it sounds like your soap was going through the gel stage, which is a normal stage of saponification. I like to gel all my soaps, and it (gel) starts out as a small darkish spot in the middle which spreads all the way out to the edges (provided that the soap generates enough heat), before returning back to a normal color as it cools. It sounds like your soap went through what is known as a partial gel since it didn't generate enough heat for it to go all the way to the edges. Not to worry, though- there's nothing bad about partially gelled soap other than it may look uneven ,color-wise, for awhile.


Have you zap-tested any of your soaps yet, especially the one that shattered? (sounds lye-heavy)

Edited to add: lol, Kamahido and I were posting at the same time. Yours must have been the post I was reading.


IrishLass

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I have just begun testing a few of my first soap batches ... I tried my first at the end of May. I am quite pleased so far.

As for the one that shattered it is sort of 'burny' just handling it. So, NO!, I don't think I even want to consider 'taste testing' it for zap. Oh, Jeez!

I agree-- if it's burning your hands, you already know as much as you need to know.


IrishLass

Kamahido said:

Just to clarify, that batch shattered but passed a zap test. Haven't seen anything like it before or since. I also read at the time of other people having trouble with Essential Depot's lye so I switched suppliers and it has not reoccurred.

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No, the batch shattered when I tried to cut it. I did not do the zap test because it had a slight burning sensation just handling the cut pieces.