Help needed for my friend... OO soap really flakey

[MrsBaker]

My friend made her first batch of soap. 100% olive. She cut it after 24 h, and it was really dry and flakey. Like very hard white chocolate when it is cut with a knife. I did the tongue test, no zaps, hardly any lather but that is not a surprise for oo soap. Lye heavy still? The soap didn't bother my hands when I tried it, though. If too little lye, I suppose it would be rather soft.

Any ideas what is the matter?

 

[aseewald]

If it was hot process (assuming so because you said it turned solid quickly) then maybe it's just not enough water in the process?

 

[Obsidian]

Sounds like she waited too long to cut. OO soap is a weird beast, sometimes it takes forever to set up, other times it gets rock hard really quickly.

 

[SaltedFig]

My friend made her first batch of soap. 100% olive. She cut it after 24 h, and it was really dry and flakey. Like very hard white chocolate when it is cut with a knife. I did the tongue test, no zaps, hardly any lather but that is not a surprise for oo soap. Lye heavy still? The soap didn't bother my hands when I tried it, though. If too little lye, I suppose it would be rather soft.

Any ideas what is the matter?

Is it possible to post a photo of the soap with the recipe?

(I know, but I'm curious to see it, in the context of lye concentration & recipe weights, with method too, if you can )

 

[MrsBaker]

Thanks for the replies. It was cold-processed.

Recipe was

425 g olive
106 g water
55 g lye

So it has 5% superfat, and water only 25 % of oil weight, which I am assuming being the problem.

I'm not sure if I know how to add pics...

IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/a31mw6.jpg[/IMG]

 

[Lin19687]

I don't do CP, but looks like not enough water (at 33%)

And not sure how it didn't zap for CP ?

 

[DeeAnna]

I don't do CP, but looks like not enough water (at 33%)

That lye concentration is just fine for this type of soap if made with a cold process method. You can go up to 50% lye concentration for a high oleic soap, although many people, including me, usually don't go much higher than 40%.

For a hot process method, I'd use more like 25% lye concentration for ease of handling.

Just to be clear -- I'm not talking about "water as % of oils" -- I'm talking about lye concentration. I strongly recommend using lye concentration (or water:lye ratio) rather than "water as % of oils". Once you start basing the water content on the weight of alkali (NaOH or KOH) rather than on the fats, you'll get more consistent results.

And not sure how it didn't zap for CP ?

Why shouldn't a CP soap be zap free in 24 hours after making? Mine is. ???

 

[earlene]

As mentioned above, it looks like maybe it should have been cut sooner, but also the knife itself is probably another part of the problem. Kitchen knives with the wedge shape that they have are find for cutting meat and so forth, but not that good for soap. Splitting logs with wedges, you may have noticed, can cause splintering. That's what happens with brittle soap, too. Now, I don't always end up with brittle soap when I make a Castille, but it has happened to me once or twice. Usually when I get brittle soap, it's a combination of ingredients and waiting too long to cut the soap. And when I used to cut with a wedged shape kitchen knife, that just complicated things with brittle soap. In this case, it's not the ingredients, though. So I would say it is the knife and the initial hardness of the soap, which probably needed to be cut hours earlier (when at a sort of mild cheddar cheese consistency/hardness).

 

[cmzaha]

I agree with the others. Why can't I see the pic, can some of you see it? I cp OO soaps with a 40% lye concentration

I don't do CP, but looks like not enough water (at 33%)
And not sure how it didn't zap for CP ?

Unless I do not gel my soap, my soaps do not zap after 24hrs.

 

[earlene]

I agree with the others. Why can't I see the pic, can some of you see it? I cp OO soaps with a 40% lye concentration


Unless I do not gel my soap, my soaps do not zap after 24hrs.

To see the photo, I had to click on the link. It showed up as a TINY photo the first time I clicked the link, but when I decided to take a second look, the link did not cooperate at all.

 

[Serene]

got it.. The original is this small

 

[penelopejane]

I get 35% lye concentration with soap calc which is fine for Castile. If she didn’t add anything else it could be she cut it too late or it could be she overheated it on a heatmat or CPOP. It is difficult to see the texture from the photo which might give you a better idea.

Did she use pomace?

 

[Lin19687]

Unless I do not gel my soap, my soaps do not zap after 24hrs.

TY, I didn't know that

Does Pomace make that much of a difference?

 

[earlene]

Did she use pomace?

Does Pomace make that much of a difference?

For me pomace OO traces much much faster than regular OO, so it makes sense that the soap may harden faster, too. I had not thought of that specifically, penelopejane. Very astute of you!

 

[MrsBaker]

Thanks everybody. I'll let my friend know. Sometimes the simplest recipes are not the simplest. Good to know there is nothing wrong with this batch.

She was using regular olive oil, but not sure if she used heating mat/oven to gel.

Sorry about the tiniest pic, next time I will be a little more generous!

 

[SaltedFig]

Late to the party (internet outage at my end) - sounds like you might have enough to take back to your friend to work on a solution

I agree with the others on using lye concentration for all calculations - it will lead to much better control over recipes

A comment that I would add is that accurate scales are an absolute must for measuring the NaOH, especially for this moderately small batch size.
Lye concentration could be varying by over 1.5%, just from rounding, if whole gram measurements have been used.
I do not believe that this is a problem for your friends soap, as you say it is zap free, but a lower than expected superfat could account for a portion of the rapid brittleness.