Gelling after 24 hours?

[Jaccart789]

I made some soap yesterday with a routinely used recipe. I have stopped insulating my soaps because I notice that the soap in my hdpe mold heats pretty fierce and even. However, 2 times and yesterday my soap never gelled (I was up really late watching movies, so I checked frequently), but it went hard and stayed firm, colors stayed matte, now 24 hours later it is warming and getting soft. This happened before with another soap different FO, same mold and same recipe and it went gel after 12 hours, but now its been 24 hours. The only thing that is different in the variables is the FO. I used a peppermint FO in this recent batch.

Have you heard of this? I was about to cut my soap since its been 24 hours but now its significantly warm and getting soft. How weird. I have soaped close to 200 batches and this is the third time this has happened, but again I don't use this mold all the time and different FO. I never have this happen in my other molds. My experience is soap becomes very stiff and then gels soft, colors become translucent and then becomes firm again.

What do you think? Has this happened to you?

 

[lionprincess00]

Well, my second batch I made was a gm omh with a hint of saffron honey. Had sugar added, cocoa pencil line, flax seed added to 2/3 of the batter.
Froze 7-8 hours, fridge for 10 hours or so. I pulled it out, and left it in a ventilated closet. Later that day I went to check, and it was heating up! I posted about it yesterday and didn't get a ton of responses. I assume in my case it was the freezer and fridge slowing saponofication, then it started to spped saponofication once at room temp. I stuck it back in the fridge once I felt the warmth, and left it there for several more hours. The second time I pulled it out of the refrigerator it no longer warmed up. Thankfully it didn't gel, and I assuming the 24 hour later saponofying that heated the soap did NOT heat ENOUGH to gel. I *thought* silicone molds loose more heat, so I was surprised it did this in my bb small loaf silicone mold (holds 20oz max). Sorry for the book. So I've had something similar, but our variables are different. I would love an expert to chime in on this!

 

[lionprincess00]

I should mention I was trying to avoid gelling in this case.

 

[Jaccart789]

Thanks for your response. It sounds like that its quite possible (well actually it is possible because its happening now and happened to you). I suspect its my FO that slowed it down. I appreciate your experience on this matter and I hopefully will hear another answer. I missed your post yesterday.