Can Lye be reheated?

[jessica kiefer]

I've been soaping for about 3 months. Can lye be heated once its cooled? I was just curious. Is it necessary or doesn't matter? I soap around 99 degrees but, accidentally let my lye cool to room temp. I went ahead and allowed my oils to cool to 10 degrees above it and finished my soap. But, I just wondered if I could've warmed the lye. I just read about master batching so....do they heat it or do CP room temp soaping? Thanks. Jess

 

[AliOop]

You can gently and carefully reheat your lye solution, but there is typically no reason do to so. I use my room-temp master-batched lye all the time with no problems. My recipe is usually 60% or so of hard oils which have to be heated to 160F to avoid stearic spots. I do let those cool, and as long as the mixed and melted oils are around 90-100F when I add the room temp lye, I don't get false trace.

BTW, avoiding false trace is really the only reason that beginner soapers are advised to have their oils and lye within 10 degrees of each other. Other than that, there's no scientific reason for trying to match temps.

 

[Barefoot Farm Girl]

You can gently and carefully reheat your lye solution, but there is typically no reason do to so. I use my room-temp master-batched lye all the time with no problems. My recipe is usually 60% or so of hard oils which have to be heated to 160F to avoid stearic spots. I do let those cool, and as long as the mixed and melted oils are around 90-100F when I add the room temp lye, I don't get false trace.

BTW, avoiding false trace is really the only reason that beginner soapers are advised to have their oils and lye within 10 degrees of each other. Other than that, there's no scientific reason for trying to match temps.

Seriously??? lol I’ve been running back and forth like a lunatic with the thermometer, putting stuff in hot water baths for no real reason At least I get a cardio workout and lots of steps in while making soap!!! This is great information to know, one less thing to stress over. I’m that girl that takes a Pipette to remove 1/10 of an oz to make sure I have 3.07 and not 3.08

 

[artemis]

Seriously??? lol I’ve been running back and forth like a lunatic with the thermometer ....

Ya. That's normal for a beginner. I think we all went through that phase.

I will put mix my lye solution while it sits in an cool water bath and melt the hard oils while it cools down.

 

[jessica kiefer]

Whaaaaat???!!! I've been stressing over temps and it's all for nothing? SMH.....Soooo, you can mix lye and oils at whatever temp you like?? Just dont burn your oils?

 

[AliOop]

Pretty much, yes, with a couple of warnings:

1. You are right about not letting your oils get too hot. For your safety, don't soap with the oils above 180ºF until you are very experienced and have a good understanding of high-temperature soaping. Even many experienced soapers will not do high-temp soaping at all.

2. Don't let your lye solution get too cold. At 65ºF or below, the lye starts to precipitate out of solution, forming chunks of "lye ice" at the bottom of the jug.

3. If your recipe contains a lot of stearic and palmitic fatty acids, you may get some false trace, or stearic spots, or both, if you let the oils get too cold and are also using room-temp lye solution. Stearic spots are just cosmetic, but false trace can cause some problems if you don't recognize it and know what to do about it. You can use the search bar at the top of the page to search for "false trace" and find out more about that.

ETA: there are a fair number of folks who use the "heat transfer" method of soaping. This calls for pouring fresh, hot lye over their room-temp hard oils, hand-stirring that until the hard oils are melted. Then they pour in the soft oils and use the stick-blender to emulsify the mix. I have used this method in the past but didn't really find it to be a time-saver. It also made it much harder to control the level of trace, which is important if you are planning certain designs.

 

[Relle]

I’m that girl that takes a Pipette to remove 1/10 of an oz to make sure I have 3.07 and not 3.08

If you use grams instead of ounces you won't need to do that, grams are more accurate.

 

[Barefoot Farm Girl]

If you use grams instead of ounces you won't need to do that, grams are more accurate.

The way I pour? Ha!!!!

 

[Firefly24]

Seriously??? lol I’ve been running back and forth like a lunatic with the thermometer, putting stuff in hot water baths for no real reason At least I get a cardio workout and lots of steps in while making soap!!! This is great information to know, one less thing to stress over. I’m that girl that takes a Pipette to remove 1/10 of an oz to make sure I have 3.07 and not 3.08

You and me both. Now I can calm down.