Deanna, I have a question...

[AnnaMarie]

So Super DeeAnna, I'm not a scientist (my degree is in History ), so I'm going to ask you if perchance the excess water in this recipe provides a medium to help the extra lye evaporate? I'm still waiting to test the ph of my older batches, but I was thinking about their apparent mildness and wondering....
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[newbie]

If I read her correctly, I think that is exactly what she postulates; the excess water is needed to dissolve the lye and carry it to the surface where the water and the lye have a chance to react with the CO2 in the air to form the ash (that two part equation she listed- water plus CO2 forms weak carbonic acid, then the carbonic acid plus the lye forms air and ash). I'm sure she will correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that's the theory of why this recipe works but wouldn't work if the water content were significantly less.

 

[AnnaMarie]

So if I'm reading correctly, the water reacts with carbon dioxide to create carbonic acid. The sodium hydroxide then reacts with the carbonic acid to make sodium carbonate and water, and the lye is essentially becoming soda ash? This is strange given all the lye crystals of my previous batches. I'm just thinking out loud...I do that a lot

 

[DeeAnna]

Yep, you two are 100% on the same page that I am.

I have two hypotheses about this recipe: The excess lye is needed to drive the saponification of soft oils such as olive that are difficult to saponify without a lye excess. The large excess of water quickly carries the lye from inside the bar to the surface where the lye can be neutralized with CO2.

I'm going to ask ... are you sure the crystals are lye, AnnaMarie? Could they be soda ash? I'm not trying to say that they're not lye -- I'm just wondering about this from half a large continent away.

Based on my second more-successful recipe, what I'm seeing is this: A freshly cut surface of the soap appears shiny, feels slightly damp, and is zappy from lye. After some hours, that surface appears drier and is not zappy. After some days, the surface is covered with a fine layer of soda ash. Ash does have a salty, metallic, almost-zappy flavor for me, but it's different than a real zap from lye.

On the other hand, I can also see that lye crystals could form if the evaporation of the water is carrying more lye out of the soap than can react with the available CO2. That could explain this difference between your soap and mine.

I also "think aloud" on this forum and especially on this thread, especially since I have no one in my face-to-face life that I can talk to about this stuff. DH is a good fellow, but he's not a soaper. Thanks for listening!

 

[seven]

mine is still zappy, and this is the 3rd day.. hmm... is it the climate? hot n humid here..

the wet parts has hardened nicely tho. the soap looks white n creamy n i'm dying to test it no soda ash on mine, strange..

 

[DeeAnna]

Seven, it easily might be your environmental conditions making the difference. The air in my home is about 40% humidity at the moment, so the evaporation is going to be a lot faster for me than for you. (Or than it would be for me during a typical humid Iowa summer.)

 

[MzMolly65]

Hey folks,

If I can hop around enough to gather supplies I want to try this recipe today but I have a question .. with the high amount of water does this recipe still fit into the mold in the regular way or will I need to either, 1. reduce the recipe to fit or 2. have a 2nd mold handy?

 

[seven]

DeeAnna, yep, that's my guess too. Just tested again, some of the bars are less zappy than others. the middle ones are the worst.

MzMolly, if i were you, i would do the 2nd route and have a 2nd mold handy (rather than have a headache with all the calculations).

 

[MzMolly65]

MzMolly, if i were you, i would do the 2nd route and have a 2nd mold handy (rather than have a headache with all the calculations).

I had to run it through soap calc anyway because I'm using pomace so decided if I was going to muck around with numbers I might as well reduce the batch.

Can someone double check my numbers for me? I'm not altogether sure what I'm doing but I just played with the percentages until I got something that looked like 1 part oil:1 part water and 1 part lye:1 part water.

So... I've got 500g pomace OO, 93.832g lye, 593.583g water, SF -40, lye concentration 13.65%

I'll put 500 g of oil and 500 g water in one container then mix 93 g of lye with 93 g of water. Once the lye is dissolved, add to oil/water mix and HAND stir off and on until traced. Right? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.

 

[seven]

if you want to do the full recipe, i don't think the loaf mold will fits. you can always do half.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you know how much total batter (fat + water + lye) you would normally use to fill your mold, then adjust AnnaMarie's recipe so you will make about the same total weight of batter with that recipe.

Using about 2/3rds my normal amount of fat worked good for my mold, so that might be a good starting point for you. To say it another way, my usual soap recipe calls for about 1500 g of fat. I used 1000 g of fat to make AnnaMarie's recipe. It fit pretty well in the same mold.

And I agree w Seven -- have another mold ready just in case! Individual cavity molds should work okay, IMO.

Seems like someone has tried individual bar molds earlier in this thread and it worked okay. My apologies to that poster -- I haven't tracked your post down to doublecheck the details.

Hope this helps.

 

[MzMolly65]

Sorry, I was editing my post while two of you replied. Can you just review my post and see the numbers I've posted? Thanks so much.

ETA: Does anyone think mixing container shape or size matters? I usually mix in a tall juice jug because it's easy to pour into the mold after but since this recipe is odd I was pondering whether I should use something with more width, like a pot.

 

[AnnaMarie]

I'm the one who tried individual molds, and they do work nicely, it just might take a bit longer to set. Molly, I can't help you with the numbers because I'm not used to dealing in grams (lol! I'd better learn), but your methodology and mixing container look fine to me. Have fun! Keep us posted!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Yep, you two are 100% on the same page that I am.

I have two hypotheses about this recipe: The excess lye is needed to drive the saponification of soft oils such as olive that are difficult to saponify without a lye excess. The large excess of water quickly carries the lye from inside the bar to the surface where the lye can be neutralized with CO2.

I'm going to ask ... are you sure the crystals are lye, AnnaMarie? Could they be soda ash? I'm not trying to say that they're not lye -- I'm just wondering about this from half a large continent away.

Based on my second more-successful recipe, what I'm seeing is this: A freshly cut surface of the soap appears shiny, feels slightly damp, and is zappy from lye. After some hours, that surface appears drier and is not zappy. After some days, the surface is covered with a fine layer of soda ash. Ash does have a salty, metallic, almost-zappy flavor for me, but it's different than a real zap from lye.

On the other hand, I can also see that lye crystals could form if the evaporation of the water is carrying more lye out of the soap than can react with the available CO2. That could explain this difference between your soap and mine.

I also "think aloud" on this forum and especially on this thread, especially since I have no one in my face-to-face life that I can talk to about this stuff. DH is a good fellow, but he's not a soaper. Thanks for listening!

I more than understand not having someone to talk to in real life about soaping stuff . This forum has been great for meeting people of similar interests, and I've been very grateful for it.

I'm sure it was lye crystals on my soap (I understood your implication with the question ). They were sparkling and building upon each other- very much in the same way that crystals do in those grade school experiments with string and water and alum (I think). The crystals are all gone now though, so I can't send a pic.

There's no sign of lye crystals on my new batch yet which seems a little odd, but then this batch held its water which might be the reason why (proper saturation of lye???).

In other news, my test bar now weighs 5.40 oz down from 6.95- a 22% decrease in weight. I chickened out on the zap test today because it was so stingy yesterday- lol!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[MzMolly65]

:clap: My batch is almost ready to pour! I mixed up the volume I stated above and decided to use the glass pot rather than the juice jug .. just for greater ease of mixing. It's working wonderfully and I have a light trace at around the 1/2 hour mark. I'm just letting it set up a bit more before pouring.

Never mind the funky recipe, I might adapt this method for all future soaping because it's just much calmer than the hectic SB and hurry up before it's too thick to pour method.

I'm happy to be soaping again after 3 weeks of sitting on the sidelines!

ETA: I did NOT use a wooden spoon and I did NOT stir in one direction so those are obviously superstitious behaviours that are not essential to the process.

ETA: I know .. no glass around lye. I took a calculated risk and yes, I know it was dangerous. If I make this soap again I'll get a proper mixing container.

 

[btz]

I cut my lye heavy coconut oil soap yesterday. The bottom part was firm, but the top part was a little brittle. The Sweet Almond Oil was out of the individual mold too, but I guess it was a little bit too soon, there's some part of the soap left in the mold . Not a pretty soap, but I don't really mind that.

AnnaMarie, can I ask is your previous lye heavy castile soap drying on the skin? I read that you said it was hard, long lasting and not slimy, but nothing about about the moisturizing effect.

 

[AnnaMarie]

I cut my lye heavy coconut oil soap yesterday. The bottom part was firm, but the top part was a little brittle. The Sweet Almond Oil was out of the individual mold too, but I guess it was a little bit too soon, there's some part of the soap left in the mold . Not a pretty soap, but I don't really mind that.

AnnaMarie, can I ask is your previous lye heavy castile soap drying on the skin? I read that you said it was hard, long lasting and not slimy, but nothing about about the moisturizing effect.

I don't remember it being drying at all, but it has been a number of years since I used it in the shower. Once the ph is right on these I will be paying attention to that issue. I had dry skin for a number of years until I started making my own soap, and I honestly don't remember any issues with this recipe other then it made great soap. However, I will go on record as saying that I don't have sensitive skin, so I will be interested to hear others response to this soap.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[btz]

That's good to hear. Will wait somewhat impatiently for the report

 

[DeeAnna]

Well, my homely olive-oil soap -- the batch that cleaned my oven -- is still losing weight, but not as fast. I think most of the excess lye was lost right up front when the emulsion failed. This soap has grown almost no ash since I cut the bars (unlike the second batch, below). The bars are mostly very firm -- they do not yield to hard finger pressure. The darker center portions are still a bit softer, but very acceptable, given how very soft they were to start with.

My second batch -- the pretty safflower-lard soap -- is still cool from evaporation and is still losing weight at about the same rate as in the beginning. I would expect some deformation of the bars as they lose all this water, and that is happening a little bit, but not as much as I would expect. I was expecting these bars to dry down like a rebatched bar -- you know how they can get swaybacked and hollow? Not these babies!

The bars have stayed a pale ivory color, but are completely covered in a thin but growing layer of dull white soda ash. The ash does not zap and the surface soap does not zap either after I wipe off the ash. The ash has a strong salty-metallic-bitter taste, but the soap itself is pretty much tasteless. I didn't cut into a bar to check the innards, but I'm sure the center is still zappy. I'll wait a few more days and check that again. The bars are surprisingly firm -- I can just barely dent the surface a tiny bit if I press very hard with my fingertips. I would not expect this much hardness from a safflower-lard blend if I had used a normal CP recipe.

 

[AnnaMarie]

I wonder how this recipe would work with sunflower seed oil? I've heard it's comparable to olive....thinking out loud again.

 

[DeeAnna]

AnnaMarie: "...wonder how this recipe would work with sunflower seed oil? I've heard it's comparable to olive..."

Regular sunflower has more linoleic and less oleic than olive does. I wouldn't say the two are similar, really.

What I do know is that high oleic safflower (what I used in my 2nd batch at 70% along with 30% lard) and HO sunflower have a similar fatty acid content that is comparable to olive. The HO safflower is doing really well so far.

MzMolly: "...ETA: I did NOT use a wooden spoon and I did NOT stir in one direction so those are obviously superstitious behaviours that are not essential to the process...."

You were hopping around on one foot, m'dear. That was good enough -- the wooden spoon and stirring-one-way rules are waived for you.