First Post HP Soap Problem

[bobaloo11]

Ok, to start I'm a newbie on this forum. I make HP soaps because I don't have the space to have 100's of bars of soap curing. My recipies are all based on CP soaps and have always worked out well. I always used a lard based recipies. My niece is a vegan so she wanted me to go all plant based oil. I gave it a go. I replaced the lard with Crisco and pretty much used the rest of the usual ingredients. I ran it thru on the lye calculator and had to tweak the ratio a bit, but not much.
Well, while it was cooking it seemed that the oils separated and I had to re mix it with my stick blender. Thank God it blended back, jelled nicely and I put it in my molds. Now for the bad part, it is soft... very soft. it was very sticky too. I sliced it and put it on racks hoping it would "cure". Well it's not sticky any longer (on the outside) but it is still extremely soft. Soft enough that if you gripped it and squeezed it in your hand, it would come gushing out from between your fingers.
Any ideas what went wrong? Can it be fixed or reused somehow? I have almost 10lbs of this stuff. It looks great, smells wonderful, but would probably be a one shower soap. I was thinking of somehow making a liquid soap from it.
Sorry for the long post, but enjoy reading long posts, hope you do too.
TIA,
Bob

 

[MagicalMysterySoap]

Post your recipe so you can get better help. It probably is soft because it is lacking in palmitic and Stearic (lard) acids. Let it cure longer and it will eventually get hard.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

HP'd soap also needs a good 4 weeks to cure.

I'm not familiar with Crisco, but I don't think all of it is hard oils, is it? So it might well be softer for a bit. As Magic said, cure that for a while.

 

[seven]

how much water did you use? i find that as i tend to use full water for hp (3:1), at the end it's taking longer to cure than cp.

 

[Lindy]

If you wanted you could rebatch it in the crockpot.

 

[jules92207]

I feel all my HP soaps are relatively softer than I would like, but I think a look at your recipe will help determine what is going on there.

 

[bobaloo11]

Rebatch by just re-cooking it? or adding more lye & water etc...

 

[bobaloo11]

The recipe

Here is the recipe I used for my mushy soap. I've never needed to wait more than a few days to use my soap when made with lard. Also, this was the first time I used the castor/olive oil mix.

48 oz Crisco (with Palm Oil)
20 oz. Canola
20 oz. Coconut Oil
4 oz. Castor Oil
4 oz. Olive Oil

36.5 oz. Distilled Water
13.5 oz. Lye

I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Bob

p.s. PH is 6.5 to 7.0. Did zap too no problem.

 

[Seawolfe]

PH is 6.5 to 7.0.

No soap made with lye has a pH this low. Either the test is faulty or you forgot the lye.

 

[shunt2011]

Your recipe looks like it will be somewhat soft. I too think your ph is off. CP/HP soap PH is generally 8-10 in ph. I would just give it a good cure as it looks like you used full water. HP still requires at least a 4 week cure. There's more to curing than soponification.

 

[Lindy]

To start with you water is way too high, it should be about 24 ounces which is why it is so soft. pH is way off so I suggest forgetting about it and just do the zap test. If it is still zapping then you have not cooked it long enough, it should quit zapping before you mold it.

 

[bobaloo11]

Maybe my PH test strips are bad. But what still puzzles me is that I have used this recipe MANY times, but ALWAYS with lard, never Crisco. 100's of great bars of soap and not a problem. I guess I can do nothing but let them sit and cure and pray they'll get harder.
Thanks for all the help.
Bob

 

[new12soap]

Your pH strips may be fine, they just don't work for soap. There are a bunch of threads floating around about pH testing, IMO it is unnecessary and incredibly hard to do accurately. The surfactant nature of soap will always throw off the strips and you will get a falsely low reading. If you absolutely feel you MUST test the pH of your soaps (I promise you do not have to, and it is not uncommon for fresh bar soap to have a pH of 10.5), then you will need to buy a good quality pH meter, learn to use it correctly, and keep it calibrated.

 

[MagicalMysterySoap]

On soapcalc, your recipe with crisco is a lot softer than with lard so maybe that's why. Or maybe miscalculation? If it's not on that then just give it time, it should eventually harden. If you plan on making any veg soaps in the near future, it would be better to replace lard with palm oil instead of crisco. You'll have a harder soap.

 

[bobaloo11]

I'm definately gonna try again. The palm oil idea sounds like a good idea. I did notice that the lye calculator showed it to be a softer soap, but I figured it would be useable just the same. I'm just going to let this batch dry for a while, keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.
Thanks again.
Bob

 

[doriettefarm]

SAP values for lard and palm are almost identical. I would definitely try straight palm oil next time instead of Crisco.