Have I failed? Help needed.

[jasoneflanagan]

Hi, guys. I've been skulking around this forum for a while now, and this is my first post.

Last weekend, my wife and I tried our hand at making a castille soap, and I'm pretty sure we failed utterly. The recipe calls for:

52 oz. olive oil
7 oz. lye
20 oz. water

We felt like we mixed the oil and lye at precisely 100 degrees, so we were feeling good about things. After stirring the mix for 30 minutes or so, we weren't noticing trailings to tell us that we were read to pour it into the primary mold, but after 50 minutes or so, we could see that it was indeed thickening even if the trailings weren't evident. So we went ahead and poured it into the mold.

The book we have warned us that an oil layer would form on the soap once it was in the primary mold and that we just had to stir it into the soap with a spoon every 12 hours or so.

After four or so hours a pretty thick layer of oil had separated out of the soap (maybe I should put soap in quotes at this point), but we stirred it back in fairly well. The next morning, the oil layer was about an inch thick and was impossible to stir in.

It's been five days since we did all of this, and I guess we've been waiting for something to happen. I ladeled out all the excess oil, and the soap seems pretty soft still.

My questions are;
Is there any way to save this batch of soap, or do I need to start over again?

What should I have done differently?

Thanks in advance,
Jason

 

[Lindy]

Castille is one of my favourite soaps, but you really need to stir until you have a much thicker trace before pouring and I use a SB - can't imagine life without one.

What you can do to save this is put it back in the pot and put it in the oven at 200 degrees, watch it carefully and as it starts to melt, start mixing it again. If the bottom layer is hard, then pour the top layer of oil into your soap pot and then chop the bottom layer into really small pieces (I prefer grating but I can imagine how challenging that would be with it so oily). Keep mixing until everything is mixed together - this is going to take awhile.

From looking at your recipe and running it through soapmaker you were a little high on water.

I would have made it at:

52 oz Olive Oil
6.5 oz Lye
16 oz Water

Good luck to you and don't give up on it - this can be saved.

Cheers

 

[carebear]

I'm not sure what a "primary mold" is, but you basically need to bring it to a good trace before pouring it out of your bowl. This can take HOURS of stirring with a wisk (don't bother using a spoon, it takes much longer) but you can get there faster using a stick (immersion) blender.

Also, you used a 26% lye solution which is quite weak for a castile - making it slower yet.

So you had separation which is quite predictable.

WHAT book is that?

I agree with Lindy - you can cook it to save it. But you need to put all that oil back in. If you don't still have that then toss the batch away and start again. And next time use less water and a stick blender.

 

[jasoneflanagan]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try what you've recommended.

The book is called The Complete Soapmaker. I think my wife picked it up at a garage sale. Is there another book of recipes you recommend?

It also has this one that I was going to try next:

42 oz. olive oil
30 oz. coconut oil
28 oz. veg. shortening
6 oz. cocoa butter
3 oz castor oil
14 oz. lye
41 oz. water

Can you see any problems with this one?

I don't vegetable shortening in the list of oils on soapcalc.com. Should I substitute tallow to get the right lye to fat proportion?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Lucy]

If you are just beginning to make soap I would suggest working in much smaller sample batches. 1 pound total oils.

 

[heartsong]

soap

i agree smaller batches are better when first starting off. if the lye amount is correct, then that looks like a good recipe. i would superfat 6-8%.

on soapcalc there is crisco listed and soybean 27.5% hydrogenated (shortening) the both have different characteristics, so do not sub one for the other without recalculating lye.

good luck and keep trying. also you may like to check this link, if you dont already know it.

www.soap-making-essentials.com

above all, have fun!

 

[Lindy]

You should be checking your recipes with a Lye Calculator. It will make sure you the proper amount of water for your recipe. Here are a few to check out -

http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php
http://www.brambleberry.com/lye_calc_1.php

This one is the one I really like and use it exclusvely. It's a free download that has a 30 day trial period and well worth trying - http://www.soapmaker.ca/purchaseForm.htm There are a lot of great features.

Your recipe has way too much of a Lye Discount (14.65%) and too much water. Try this instead:

15 oz Lye (8.53% Discount)
35 oz water (8.42% discount)

I also have that book, but I now run all of her recipes through my Soapmaker program because I find her recipes are sometimes a bit "off".

Since getting this program I have been able to develop recipes that are mine and have been successful thus far. I find Norma's book creates inspiration for me when I'm looking for ideas & it was through that book, plus all the information up here, that got me to be have the courage to try whipping milled/rebatch soap. Love the effect.

At any rate - always check your recipes (from books and those you get here - yup even mine 8) ) through whichever calc you choose to use.

Cheers

 

[carebear]

- Soapcalc has shortening listed as Crisco I think; do always check - I prefer soapcalc.com over others for the most part
- that's still too much water at a 25% lye concentration - aim for 28% or 30%
- stick to a 5-6% superfat
- I make test batches of 2# - with smaller batches the impact of small errors in measuring are magnified. THAT recipe is enormous and way too big for experimenting with, IMO.
- for alternative recipes and a great learning opportunity, visit, read, absorb everything you can from millersoap.com

 

[jasoneflanagan]

Regarding the size of the batch: are you saying that I should scale down these recipes so that I'm only putting in one pound of oil/fat per batch starting out? Or do you mean I should cut back to no more than a pound of any one ingredient?

Thanks for all of the patient advice.
Jason

 

[carebear]

scale down - your batch size should be one to two pounds of oils total - otherwise you may end up wasting a LOT of materials and money.

 

[jasoneflanagan]

Got it. Thanks everyone. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Jason