Hi Tabitha!
Gosh I'm so glad my post was well-received! Whew!
Ya never know how you're gonna be taken when you're new, and I really didn't want to come across like a soap-dictator, lol. There's still soooo much left for me to learn too, but I like sharing what I've already learned if it can help somebody else.
If you're asking how long soap logs take to cool after pouring...usually the whole gel process is over with in a few hours and it starts to return to room temperature shortly after that. So maybe 6-7 hours, give or take and it should be cooling down nicely. It's real hard to predict exactly, but this is a fair estimate. Some recipes are slow to gel, and some (especially with milk or honey) get really hot, so these might take a little longer to cool.
If you prevent gel altogether (whether by refrigeration, or soaping at very cool temps) then you don't have the cooling down issue, BUT the soap takes longer to firm up, so you should let it sit for 36-48 hours before unmolding. Preventing gel also means waiting longer before you can cut the bars (4-5 days) because of the extra softness & they'll need the full amount of curing time (6 weeks) to evaporate all of the excess fluid. Whether you gel your soaps or not is a personal preference. You still end up with lovely soap. Some people don't like to gel their soaps because it can turn a milk soap a slightly darker shade of tan & they want to avoid that.
I've tried both ways - gelled and ungelled, and I prefer to gel my soaps. It's a visible sign of your soap being saponified & you can tell when it's done. An ungelled soap...you never know the exact moment when the saponification is complete because there's no way to tell by looking. I mean, it's over within a day or so at most, but still, I just like to know before I go grabbing it outta the mold. Raw/fresh soap chaps my hands something fierce, so I like to play it safe.
I'm sorry...there I go again! I didn't mean to ramble on.
