Beer Soap

[twincreeks]

I am a relatively new soap maker. Made about 30 batches so far, but we just tried out beer soap. We had no problems whatsoever with the lye and beer mixing. It was taken from the refrigerator and had been stirred for a week so was very flat. What we noticed, though, was that when we mixed the beer/lye mixture with our oils, we had some tiny balls of what looked like a gel. It has gone through gel phase and looks just fine, but I think I can still see some of these tiny gel balls. Does anyone have an idea of what they are or what we did wrong? We used a very basic recipe.
Thanks for any insights

 

[IrishLass]

What did you use to mix your soap batter? Sometimes, especially if hand-stirring, things can precipitate out of the mix. I like using a stickblender intermittently to mix my soap for this reason.

The 'gel balls' may end up to be perfectly harmless, though. I've had weird, transluscent, gel-like striations show up in my finished soap before- they were batches with TD in them and they got a little overheated- but they were harmless. Have you conducted a zap test?

IrishLass

 

[twincreeks]

We initially only hand stirred because we feared a quick trace. We did briefly use the stick blender for a few seconds when mixing in the EOs. What is TD? No, I have not tried the zap test yet.

 

[IrishLass]

TD is titanium dioxide.

IrishLass

 

[sudbubblez]

the gel balls could be glycerin. Are they caustic, and if not are they slightly sweet tasting?

 

[serfmunke]

I have weird globs floating in my lye when I wash my dishes in the dish washer. So now I give them a hand wash after the dishwasher and no longer get those strange floaties.