cloudy castile soap
- Thread starter corbin
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I'm assuming you're making liquid soap paste?
Have you checked this recipe in a soap recipe calc?
What KOH purity are you using?
At 90% purity and 3% superfat, my personal recipe calc says this recipe needs 30.6 oz KOH. You're saying you used 28.5 oz KOH. Unless I'm overlooking something, it seems to me that you have too little alkali for the fat.
Have you checked this recipe in a soap recipe calc?
What KOH purity are you using?
At 90% purity and 3% superfat, my personal recipe calc says this recipe needs 30.6 oz KOH. You're saying you used 28.5 oz KOH. Unless I'm overlooking something, it seems to me that you have too little alkali for the fat.
yes liquid, I use soapcalc.net and 90% purity KOH I never used superfat in previous batches and it turned out great...only difference with this batch is I cooked it for 6 hours until it was all translucent vs over 12 on previous batches... So I started the dilution after 6 hours now getting a yellowish sludge floating and keep skimming it off, looks alot better...do I keep cooking the diluted or just trash it..?? thank you
Soapcalc does come up with 28.47oz KOH at 0%SF, but only if you are not selecting the 90% purity option.
It looks like DeeAnna has spotted the error - you have used less lye than usual (the 90% purity wasn't selected) ... at 3% SF and 90% purity, the lye amount should be 30.68oz according to soapcalc (disregarding the slight difference in calculator values, this still matches DeeAnna's 30.6oz).
It looks like DeeAnna has spotted the error - you have used less lye than usual (the 90% purity wasn't selected) ... at 3% SF and 90% purity, the lye amount should be 30.68oz according to soapcalc (disregarding the slight difference in calculator values, this still matches DeeAnna's 30.6oz).
Superfat or no superfat -- that's purely your choice. With zero superfat, the KOH weight is a bit higher yet than what I calculated. Excess unsaponfied fat will result in cloudy soap and separation. There are other reasons why liquid soap can be cloudy or separate, but excess fat is most likely the reason in your case. Yes, you can keep skimming it off -- it's just excess fat.
Six to 12 hours of cooking is waaaay overkill. I know this is the "way it's done" but it's not the way it has to be. You don't even need to cook at all especially since you're using glycerin -- a cold process method works fine.
But if you do cook, cook only long enough so the soap is zap free. That's usually under 1 hour, and often more like 1/2 hour. All you're doing by cooking longer is evaporating water out of the paste and consuming energy and time.
Six to 12 hours of cooking is waaaay overkill. I know this is the "way it's done" but it's not the way it has to be. You don't even need to cook at all especially since you're using glycerin -- a cold process method works fine.
But if you do cook, cook only long enough so the soap is zap free. That's usually under 1 hour, and often more like 1/2 hour. All you're doing by cooking longer is evaporating water out of the paste and consuming energy and time.
I strongly second using the cold process method. Just mix your KOH/water and add that hot to your melted oils, then stick blend to "flying bubbles" or paste stage, whatever comes first. Slap a lid on it and clean up the kitchen. Go check on the soap paste, and if it is the least bit gelled on the edges, zap test. If it is zapless, dilute. Takes me about 2 hours start to finish of dilution to make liquid soap.
