Calling in the experts!

[Zing]

I could have something wrong here, but entering the numbers into soap calc Loaf #1 isn't too far off and I think it will be just fine. Loaf #2, however, appears to have a -10% superfat. If you keep it, I would definitely wait to zap test. Again, I'm not positive I've done this right, but here is what it looked like:
View attachment 53861
Also, I've never made a soap with a negative superfat, so I don't have any experience with what will correct itself with time and what will never be good.

If I haven't figured this out correctly, someone please step in and help!

This is super duper helpful and I appreciate it. So I'm guessing that you got to the lye liquid weights by decreasing the superfat amount.

 

[dibbles]

This is super duper helpful and I appreciate it. So I'm guessing that you got to the lye liquid weights by decreasing the superfat amount.

Yes, exactly!
ETA for clarity: I got the lye weight by decreasing the superfat. The liquid weight by playing with the lye concentration, although the amount of water doesn't affect the soap being lye heavy or not. I wasn't really too concerned with that number.

 

[amd]

Lesson learned, never ever again will I attempt masterbatching.

Been there, done that my friend and it took me 2 years to step back to attempting lye masterbatching again. Don't give up!

I need your expert advice. Is all lost? Should I toss it?

I would give both soaps a few weeks of curing, and then sample of them. Check for zap test before trying it out. Even if it does zap, I would leave them for another month. I've made an intentionally lye heavy soap (-20SF) and left it alone for most of a year and it had no zap. Also keep in mind, a few grams here and there really don't add up to much, so I give them the amount of worry in accordance with my batch size. 10g in a 100g batch is a lot of worry. In 800g perhaps only worth a watered down whisky.

I no longer MB lye - the anxiety I had in having a jug of lye around wasn't worth the effort it takes me to make the lye in the first place. BUT MB oils have saved my sanity. One trick that I learned is that when I MB, especially when melting in one container and transferring to another that will then have a smaller amount transferred to another container (pot to bucket to mixing bowl) is to give a bit of excess in the original MB amount to account for loss. For me, my batch size 2044g oils, so I calculate my MB 6150g per bucket. This gives me about 18g of play for transfer, not getting pot/bucket scraped completely free of excess, etc. This makes sure that I'm never short on the last batch.

*For the super anal, if I do have a bit left in the bucket after the last batch, I weigh it into my "excess" bucket, note the MB name and how much on a piece of painters tape stuck to the bucket. I use SM3, so this makes it really easy when there is enough in the bucket to make soap to calculate the lye for the MB blends in the bucket.*

 

[Zing]

Been there, done that my friend and it took me 2 years to step back to attempting lye masterbatching again. Don't give up!


I would give both soaps a few weeks of curing, and then sample of them. Check for zap test before trying it out. Even if it does zap, I would leave them for another month. I've made an intentionally lye heavy soap (-20SF) and left it alone for most of a year and it had no zap. Also keep in mind, a few grams here and there really don't add up to much, so I give them the amount of worry in accordance with my batch size. 10g in a 100g batch is a lot of worry. In 800g perhaps only worth a watered down whisky.

I no longer MB lye - the anxiety I had in having a jug of lye around wasn't worth the effort it takes me to make the lye in the first place. BUT MB oils have saved my sanity. One trick that I learned is that when I MB, especially when melting in one container and transferring to another that will then have a smaller amount transferred to another container (pot to bucket to mixing bowl) is to give a bit of excess in the original MB amount to account for loss. For me, my batch size 2044g oils, so I calculate my MB 6150g per bucket. This gives me about 18g of play for transfer, not getting pot/bucket scraped completely free of excess, etc. This makes sure that I'm never short on the last batch.

*For the super anal, if I do have a bit left in the bucket after the last batch, I weigh it into my "excess" bucket, note the MB name and how much on a piece of painters tape stuck to the bucket. I use SM3, so this makes it really easy when there is enough in the bucket to make soap to calculate the lye for the MB blends in the bucket.*

This is super helpful -- I always like to hear how others do things, and I appreciate all the deets. I'm also reminding myself that when I used ounces, I was blissfully unaware if I was off by several grams. And it's just confetti soap for in-house use only so if worse comes to worse we can use it for laundry. Thank you.

 

[Iluminameluna]

FWIW, I often go over or under with stuff, and it has almost always worked out. Praying yours does, too!

This is also what I do and so far it hasn't been a problem. *Knock on wood." I would definitely keep it and let time heal all wounds of lye.
If worse comes to worst, you can always just relegate this batch to laundry or dish soap.
I've found there's rarely a soap that's gone to waste in my house!
Hugs and supporting cheers for you! The soaps will be fine.

 

[dragonmaker]

Was the MB lye left sitting open/uncovered for a significant length of time? If yes, it might have just taken on a little extra atmospheric water weight and you did not measure anything wrong.

 

[Zing]

Just an afternoon....

 

[dragonmaker]

I’m definitely not an expert and I haven’t MB my lye before, but I know @DeeAnna told me lye mixed with enough liquid for soap can still take on atmospheric water just like the solid form can. I haven’t experienced it, so I can’t comment on how much water how fast when it is already in solution, but that’s my guess. Or you had a simple hiccup in your measuring. That’s how many

See the post:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/masterbatch-lye.81734/post-859260
You’ve seen how fast solid lye can take on water, right? It’s cool to watch, when you’re already done measuring it out... If you haven’t seen it, this is the video that taught me about lye delinquency:


It could also just be a simple error in your usually perfect measuring. Simple hiccups are how many great scientific discoveries have been made, like penicillin (he left a Petri dish uncovered by a window and accidentally grew bacterialcidal mold) and x-rays(he thought he was going mad), so try not to sweat it. You’re in good company.

 

[The_Phoenix]

When I master batch my oils for only two batches, I always go over the total oil weight by 30g just in case some of the oil is lost (it’s a mystery why it happens but it’s akin to losing one sock in the black hole of the dryer). That way I can almost always be sure that I have enough for each batch. I began doing this because I’d come up just short the second batch. Not by a lot, but enough to annoy me.

Because the entire batch in my lye calculator went over a bit on my fats, so goes my lye solution. The calculator would give me more lye than I actually needed because my oils were slightly more than I needed.

When I make a batch of soap, I pour the necessary amount of oils into one container and set that aside. I weigh out my lye solution into ANOTHER empty
container. Only then do I finally add my lye solution to the batch of oils. I think one time I added the lye solution right into the container that contained the oils and I went a wee bit over.

I encourage you to plug 0% sf into your calculator and compare the liquid and lye to 3% sf to see just how much wiggle room you’d have if errors were made while measuring.

 

[dragonmaker]

Another point of comfort: NaOH lye isn’t 100% pure in its dry form. It has at least a little water weight. Soapcalc does not account for this and assumes 100% potent NaOH lye. That adds a tiny bit of super fat unless you do a titration to calculate for your lye delinquency.