Batter lost trace, twice, the second time apparently forever.

[dxw]

When I added the lye, and mixed with a spoon, it formed a slightly granular looking slightly gelatinous mixture. That seemed fine, so I gently stick-mixed to a light trace. 30s later, as I went to add mica and EOs, it'd returned to its previous state. So I stick-mixed again, to a slightly heavier trace.
I then decanted about 20% of the batter into another container and added TiO2 / mica, EO (cinnamon), and an oatmeal (2tblspn) / cinnamon (1/4 tspn) mix to the 80% aliquot. As soon as I had spoon-mixed the batter it went liquid again. I stick mixed it again, for quite a long time, but it did not form trace again.
The small batch I'd put aside had thickened a little while it sat and was a medium custard texture.

The batch was 500g oil (20% olive, 35% coconut, 15% cocoa butter, 5% lard, 5% mango butter, 5% shea butter, 10% sunflower oil, and 5% castor oil), approx. 5% superfatted with 38% lye (190g H2O and 72g NaOH).

The only difference between the two batches was the addition of the micas and oatmeal/cinnamon to the one that re-liquefied. Was it my choice of additives, or possibly the amounts, or something else altogether? Is that batter doomed to eternal liquidity?

 

[SaltedFig]

Sounds like you have ricing. This is a great post to read on it:
Newbie’s thread “A picture of ricing, volcanos, separating, overheating”

The lye concentration is closer to 27%. Lye concentration is the amount of caustic contained in the total of water and caustic, so the math is (NaOH)/(Water +NaOH), or 72/262, which is about 27.5% lye concentration. That is quite a bit of water.

You could use heat to force the reaction along a little bit and stick-blend to try and smooth it out. Or you could push it further and hot process it until it gels and pour it. Or you could fully hot process it. Any additional water in your additives might have caused the batter to split, or the cinnamon might have been the trigger. Increasing your lye concentration will help avoid this in future (and then all you will have is a speed increase from cinammon, in a cohesive batter). Anyway ... stick blend again, if you can, or cook it. It'll still be ok.

 

[dxw]

Thanks. I had read that thread previously. Mine did not seem to separate like that.

I'm making a botch, serially, on the lye side. I used soapcalc for this and set 38% for 'water as percent of oil weight', not noticing that row a couple below where it said 'lye concentration' of 27.552%
I'll get there ... eventually

I'll see how it looks in the morning, it being bedtime now, and either try to resurrect or dump it and try again from scratch ... with slightly different lye settings.

Thanks very much.

 

[toxikon]

Do you have pics? Are you 100% certain you used NaOH and not KOH?

 

[mx5inpenn]

The granular look you mentioned is the bit that points to ricing. I had my first experience with it last month and was able to get it smoothed back out only to have it separate in the mold. I ended up having to hot process. It is soap that smells great, just doesn't look pretty.

Using the high water amount won't hurt the soap in the long run, so don't toss it! It will just take longer to set up and be ready to cut.

 

[dxw]

Do you have pics? Are you 100% certain you used NaOH and not KOH?

I do not yet own any KOH

 

[Steve85569]

If it is in fact ricing you may simply need to beat it into submission.
There is a high water castile soap thread around here somewhere ( memory lapse) that took a LOT of blending and waiting for it to FINALLY come to true trace. Being a man I had to do it twice just to be sure it make soap. It went something like beat it into emulsion, wait and watch it come apart, beat it into emulsion.... until it came to trace. Don't give up too easy.

Less water works better for me.

(edit) Here's the link https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

 

[dxw]

The God of Soap clearly has a sense of humour. I don't know, obviously, but this morning I found a nicely firm well-formed block of lovely smelling soap. The top felt fine so I very carefully removed the mould sides to see what had happened to the thin runny (80%) component. It was fine also. I have popped it in the fridge for a few hours and will cut it later this morning. Strange stuff soap!

The mica smears on the upper segment are the result of my trying some basic hangar-swirls, and a mica line. I sprinkled a line of mica atop the oatmeal/cinnamon 'liquid' layer before I poured in the upper (traced) layer, and then I made three vertical downwards hangar plunges, dragging each across the bottom and then up the side. Those smears are the result of the dragging-up-the-side part.

 

[cmzaha]

My question to ricing is that I have never seen ricing other than when eo of fo's are added in. If you were soaping cool the granular looking bits could have been butters that started to solidify. Many times if that happens once the batter heats up from the lye it will, many times, re-melt. Butters have to be soaped a little warmer than room temp. I see from your pic the soap is fine so I am guessing it gelled and the fats re-melted. Congratulations on your nice look soap

 

[dxw]

... you may simply need to beat it into submission.

I will remember that. I'd not done it with this batch, just poured it (prayed / hoped), closed the shed door and came inside to ask forum advice on what I'd done.

^^ The result, this morning, does not look too bad.

Less water works better for me.

I'll be more careful with my constituent calculations next time.

(edit) Here's the link https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

Brilliant, thanks.

My question to ricing is that I have never seen ricing other than when eo of fo's are added in. If you were soaping cool the granular looking bits could have been butters that started to solidify. Many times if that happens once the batter heats up from the lye it will, many times, re-melt. Butters have to be soaped a little warmer than room temp. I see from your pic the soap is fine so I am guessing it gelled and the fats re-melted. Congratulations on your nice look soap

That may well have been what I saw. I had liquefied the butters / solids, mixed that with the liquid oils, and left it to cool before I added the lye. It was still liquid when I added the lye a few hours later, which did surprise me a little. I do not have a thermometer yet, but both solutions - oils and lye - felt a little above room temperature ... possibly 30/80 degrees (ish) ... when I mixed them.

Thanks.

 

[cmzaha]

That may well have been what I saw. I had liquefied the butters / solids, mixed that with the liquid oils, and left it to cool before I added the lye. It was still liquid when I added the lye a few hours later, which did surprise me a little. I do not have a thermometer yet, but both solutions - oils and lye - felt a little above room temperature ... possibly 30/80 degrees (ish) ... when I mixed them.

Thanks.

Next time try around 110º F that was a little cool so I do stand with my guess

 

[SaltedFig]

A photo! Your soap looks lovely (almost cake like!).

I'd also go with cmzaha's explanation, now that it's tomorrow with pictures
Blame the cocoa butter - that stuff wants to solidify more than beeswax does, I've found (beeswax will happily stay liquid at much lower temperatures when mixed with oils, but cocoa butter likes to head off and have a solid party on it's ownsome, but sneakily ... forming little bits of soap before everyone else ... probably the stearic in it).

And now for something completely different (a good habit to get into):
It's a good habit to roughly double the lye concentration and see if your water amount is close to that. Higher values mean that the lye concentration is below 33% (more water, less lye, lower lye concentration).

I did this as I was reading your post ... it was clear quickly that 190 was a lot higher than 140 (rough double of your lye using 7), so I already knew that your lye concentration wasn't anywhere near 38% and went on to calculate properly, to give you the correct figures.

Looking at the lye concentration two ways (one reading it, and one estimating it) is an excellent habit to get into, because over time you will do this so automatically that you will notice if there are any anomalies.

 

[dxw]

And now for something completely different (a good habit to get into):
It's a good habit to roughly double the lye concentration and see if your water amount is close to that. Higher values mean that the lye concentration is below 33% (more water, less lye, lower lye concentration)

I like rules-of-thumb like that. Thanks, I will try and get a better inbuilt appreciation of water / lye amounts. Experience, I ain't got yet

A photo! Your soap looks lovely ...

Of course I did not have such a photo last night. All I had was a layer of thin, nice smelling, gruel trying to seep out of the corners of my mould.

... (almost cake like!)

That is a great idea. I will try to 'sell' the idea to my daughter as a Cinnamon Oatmeal Tea-cake soap. That sounds much better than a OMG-GruelTurnedGood soap.

Well, what a surprise. Despite all my worries it turned out quite nicely. Cut now

 

[SaltedFig]

Just beautiful!

The "Cinnamon Oatmeal Tea-cake Soap" might not last long after it cures

 

[dxw]

Just beautiful!
The "Cinnamon Oatmeal Tea-cake Soap" might not last long after it cures

Because of the added cinnamon and oatmeal, or for some other reason?

 

[SaltedFig]

Because of the added cinnamon and oatmeal, or for some other reason?

Well, that compliment came out all back to front! I meant to say that your daughter may like it so much that it also gets shared around friends

 

[dxw]

Well, that compliment came out all back to front! I meant to say that your daughter may like it so much that it also gets shared around friends

ahhhh, yes. Thanks. She's approved of the scent already. Let's see how is smells in six weeks time.

I do have a vague suspicion that I may end up supplying her university residence hall floor with soap ... especially the ones she does not like so much