First Time Using Calculator Questions

[rjuconnfan]

Some of my Amazon items are here and I am very excited to make my first soap.
I found a recipe I want to make, on SoapQueen but it had palm oil which I want to take out.
Following suggestions on that site I made alterations using thesage.com calculator. It says not to discount the liquid and suggests between 8 and 13 oz. Oil weights are 33.4 and the lye is 4.76 with a 6% SF. How do I know how much water to use? Original SoapQueen had 9.8 ounces, which was stated as 10% discount, which my figures say not to discount. I am confused!
Also Soap Queen says makes 2-3 lbs of soap...why such a range? I thought 33.4 divided by 16 would mean close to 2 lbs.........just trying to understand. I did not change any total volumes....just juggled the oils to avoid the palm.

Thoughts about this combination...I don't want to waste a lot of oils if this isnot a good combination!
I took out 8.3 ounces palm, added 3 more in coconut, and added 2.3 castor and 3 sunflower.


Thank you for any feedback!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I would use a different calc - I looked at the sage but it just seemed....... lacking. Generally, I just felt it didn't give enough information to help the user actually learn anything.

Try soapee or soapcalc. They might seemed daunting at first, soapcalc especially so, but there are some great threads here with a "how to" guide.

I would put the original recipe in to one of those calcs. Then change the oils that you don't want to use for one that you do. Then switch it over to looking at the recipe as percentages and finally set your target oil weight to what you want to make. For any untried recipe is suggest no more than 500g (or 1 lb)

The calc with do the hard work for you. You can leave everything else as is, including water amount, but depending on the recipe itself you might be best off changing it.

Set the water calculation to "lye concentration" and go for 33%, which is a fairly safe bet for most recipes. Using lye concentration rather than "%of oils" will give you much more consistent results.

 

[rjuconnfan]

I would use a different calc - I looked at the sage but it just seemed....... lacking. Generally, I just felt it didn't give enough information to help the user actually learn anything.

Try soapee or soapcalc. They might seemed daunting at first, soapcalc especially so, but there are some great threads here with a "how to" guide.

I would put the original recipe in to one of those calcs. Then change the oils that you don't want to use for one that you do. Then switch it over to looking at the recipe as percentages and finally set your target oil weight to what you want to make. For any untried recipe is suggest no more than 500g (or 1 lb)

The calc with do the hard work for you. You can leave everything else as is, including water amount, but depending on the recipe itself you might be best off changing it.

Set the water calculation to "lye concentration" and go for 33%, which is a fairly safe bet for most recipes. Using lye concentration rather than "%of oils" will give you much more consistent results.

Awesome information.! Thank you . I will try this . I guess just using the Palm Oil would be easier but at least I am learning by playing around with it.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I know people don't like it being said, but I would look hard at your reasons for not wanting to use certain oils against the backdrop of what those oils are like in soap. Lard and tallow has an "ick" factor for many, rather than a religious or ethical (vegan lifestyle) reason, but they are (lard particularly) very good in soap. Even if you still don't end up using them, exploring your reasoning for doing it can be very worthwhile.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

I'm just going to go ahead and say what I'm thinking. No offense intended and if you don't agree you can ignore me.

You're going to have a lot going on for your very first time making soap. You need a recipe that's going to behave well and predictably as you work through a hundred new things. Many people recommend first timers skip even scents and colorants to minimize complications; a weird recipe would be way worse a distraction.

I think you should take the recipe out of the equation and use something tried and true and easy for your first time. Use the palm the first time (or Crisco) and a recipe that will do what is expected and get out of the way. The goal for the first time should be to learn the process. The four bars of soap that result from a 1 lb batch are almost incidental - if nothing else they can be your goal for the qualities you want to replicate in a no-palm version.

You have forever to make soap exactly the way you want to make it, but that first time is a big hurdle. There's no sense in making it harder than it needs to be, IMO.

 

[dixiedragon]

Brewer George has a good point. You are trying a lot of stuff with this one. It's doable, but you might be making this harder on yourself.

Also, try this site:
http://www.millersoap.com/soapallveg.html

She has several good recipes with no palm and she doesn't use a lot of fancy ingredients. If your first batch was - say - coconut and canola - it's not going to be awesome soap, but it will be soap and you can get a feel for the process.

I'm gonna disagree with Efficacious. I think The Sage is a good lye calc for beginners because it gives a range of water and shows a range of superfat. I think looking at those numbers can be helpful.

Following suggestions on that site I made alterations using thesage.com calculator. It says not to discount the liquid and suggests between 8 and 13 oz. Oil weights are 33.4 and the lye is 4.76 with a 6% SF. How do I know how much water to use?​

I would use 11 or 12. I wouldn't use 8 and I wouldn't use 13, just b/c I like to give myself room in either direction. So say 9-12 is going to be a safe range. (Honestly, 8-13 is probably safe but I tend to shoot for the middle.)

Regarding what Soap Queen said about 2-3 lbs of soap - I'm not sure where she got that. I think it's just a guestimate - don't worry about it.

 

[rjuconnfan]

Lots of good feedback. Yes when I really get to making soap it will be one of the easy plain soaps. I am also playing with the calculators to learn how to use them, so some day when I am ready I can make others. No harm in playing with the ratios and numbers to learn about soapmaking. Thank you everyone!