Freeze-Dry soap?

[Bladesmith]

Hello all,

I'm just getting started on my soapmaking journey. I've been reading and reading. I feel like I'm at the point where I know just enough to be dangerous. Planning to try my first HP batch this weekend. I read a comment about freeze-drying and it got me thinking a little (even though I don't think the comment was serious). I understand there is more happening during the cure process than just water evaporation but I'm wondering if anyone has tried to freeze-dry a freshly made soap (mostly talking about hot process here) and how that affects the curing process.

The reason I'm wondering is because I do have a freeze-dryer for other reasons and I thought it might be a cool experiment to throw a bar in and see what happens. I'll probably throw in a bar from this weekend's batch just for fun. Anyone try this before?

Cody

 

[jcandleattic]

it might be a cool experiment to throw a bar in and see what happens.

Go ahead and experiment, but the bars will still need a full cure of 4-6 weeks.

I put my (CP) goat milk soaps in the freezer to prevent overheating, but they still require a full cure.

 

[Bladesmith]

The freeze-dryer removes all the water from anything you put in it.

I made 2 batches of hot process soap this past weekend. My first soap! I've taken 2 of the bars and put them in the dryer. I weighed them ahead of time and going to weigh them when they get out. I'll have more results in a few hours when I can pull them out.

Should be interesting to see how the soap behaves.

 

[earlene]

I am amazed that you have a freeze-dryer. But, then you'd probably be amazed I have an Ozone machine.

So I was curious about a Freeze Drying machine for home use and found this video. It's really quite interesting. But not inexpensive.



I am really looking forward to your reports on the freeze drying process with soap. I hope you used a liner to prevent the soap touching the metal surface of the tray while inside the machine. (Or perhaps the trays are Stainless Steel?)

 

[Bladesmith]

I did put them on the parchment. The picture above is how I put them in the machine. I do own one of the harvest rights. I have some dietary restrictions and it makes it easier if I can have some ready-made meals if I travel or whatever. But the trays are stainless.

Even though it was about -40F in the machine, the soap felt room temp which (at least when dealing with food) usually means there's no water left in it. The bars I put in developed some odd stuff that looks sort of like some cracks? Both of the bars lost right at 5% total weight. They don't seem noticeably harder than the others though. I am interested to see how they it ages compared to the others.

Below, you can see the 2 bars that I pulled out of the dryer on the left, and a regular 2-day old bar on the right.

And here's a more close-up of the "cracks" that developed. The surface is almost a little wavy now

 

[earlene]

I am not surprised it developed those cracks. In the videos I watched where the guy was dehydrating eggs, it looked like those kinds of cracks developed, too. What I was wondering about this process was if it would make the soap brittle or easily turned into powder like it did with some of the foods I saw being dehydrated on those videos.

It's cool that you have this machine for food dehydration. It sounds like a great thing to have in your kitchen. I'd sure love to be able to dehydrate food for travel and snacks, etc. But boy, it's not cheap, is it?

 

[cmzaha]

Nope, Freeze Dryers are not cheap. I had a bug to get one several years ago and changed my mind at the cost. Go figure I could have afforded it before retirement, but still would not pay the price.