Help Wanted Please

[madison]

I have made a batch of soap last week and accidently used the amount of water for the lye. I was supposed to use 134 grams of NaOH with 339 grams of water but I used 339 for both. I ended up with a brittle soap that heated up to 450 F in the mold. I haven't had this happening before, so I did some manual calculations and ended up that I have used almost 1 1/2 extra amount of lye, I am thinking to add 1 1/2 amount of oil to the batch after breaking it then melt them in my Crockpot, add the difference of KOH to suit the new amount since I am using high % of animal fat. I am thinking of fixing the amount of citric acid with KOH. I remember when I did HP six years ago, I used high amount of water almost 42% so, do I use the water as percent of oils choice in the calculator? I haven't had HP since then. Is there any need to add milk or yoghurt? I do have sodium lactate though in the fridge it may have been expired, I didn’t use it for a long time. Does the whole thing make sense? Thank you in advance.

Does this make sense to anyone?

 

[dixiedragon]

I think I get it. What I would do is use the soap calculator to calculate a batch size that would use the amount of lye you used, then you can take the difference in the oil amounts and add it when you rebatch it.

So if you used 100 grams oil but the amount of lye you used calls for 150 grams, then melt down the soap and add an additional 50 g oil.

Possibly you could set it aside for a year or so, and let the lye natural bond with the air, so the active lye is gone.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

 

[cmzaha]

I think I get it. What I would do is use the soap calculator to calculate a batch size that would use the amount of lye you used, then you can take the difference in the oil amounts and add it when you rebatch it.

So if you used 100 grams oil but the amount of lye you used calls for 150 grams, then melt down the soap and add an additional 50 g oil.

Possibly you could set it aside for a year or so, and let the lye natural bond with the air, so the active lye is gone.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

Chances letting it cure will not cure out the lye, there was not enough water. When some were trying the lye heavy castile a few years ago I did none with full water (approx 26% lye concentration) they never quit zapping. I still have one and it still zaps. My guess was, it was not enough water to carry out the excess lye.

 

[madison]

Chances letting it cure will not cure out the lye, there was not enough water. When some were trying the lye heavy castile a few years ago I did none with full water (approx 26% lye concentration) they never quit zapping. I still have one and it still zaps. My guess was, it was not enough water to carry out the excess lye.

I have used 339 g of lye with 339 g of water, isn't a 50% lye solution? I used 50% lye solution before to make my castile soap but I didn't have the extreme heat or brittle soap I have now. I don't think this batch is a 50% lye solution, it's very heavy in lye probably 75% .

I think I get it. What I would do is use the soap calculator to calculate a batch size that would use the amount of lye you used, then you can take the difference in the oil amounts and add it when you rebatch it.

So if you used 100 grams oil but the amount of lye you used calls for 150 grams, then melt down the soap and add an additional 50 g oil.

Possibly you could set it aside for a year or so, and let the lye natural bond with the air, so the active lye is gone.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

I'll keep the a couple of individual bars for the sake of experimenting but the rest in the loaf mold don't look good.
Thank you for the link I'll need some time to go through the whole thread.

 

[neonstudy]

I agree that you should re-batch with extra oil. If you want to post your soapcalc recipe we can help with this calculation.

 

[lenarenee]

Chances letting it cure will not cure out the lye, there was not enough water. When some were trying the lye heavy castile a few years ago I did none with full water (approx 26% lye concentration) they never quit zapping. I still have one and it still zaps. My guess was, it was not enough water to carry out the excess lye.

I remember that experiment from this forum. What amount of water is needed?

 

[madison]

This is the recipe, I hope someone can help. Thank you.

 

[SaltedFig]

Hi madison, my understanding of your questions is that you want to use the lye heavy soap that you have accidentaly made, by rebatching it and adding the extra oil and water you need?

The part I am not following is the mention of citric acid and KOH, so I'll leave that part out (I'll give you the math you need instead).

When you used 339.9 grams of lye instead of the 134.6 grams, you used an additional lye amount of 339.9 - 134.6 = 205.3.
To work out how much of your original recipe you need to make again, take this extra (205.3) and divide it by the original amount (134.6, or the amount of lye to make one batch amount), and the answer will give you how many times the recipe size you need to make again (this will make more sense in a moment).

205.3/134.6 = 1.525 <= this is how many times the original batch amount you would need to make

So, take every ingredient (except NaOH) and multiply it by 1.525.

As an example, to calculate the extra beeswax, multiply 10 x 1.525 => you would add 15.25 grams of beeswax to your oil mixture (do this for every ingredient)

From there, you will need to rebatch your lye heavy soap. That part I don't really know how to do (I've never tried it) - my gut instinct would be to suggest to grate it up finely, dissolve it in the water overnight and then blend that into the oil. Hopefully someone who has tried this might offer some insight into how to rebatch it (now that the math part is done).

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I think that the mix of dixiedragon and saltedfig is best (does that make it Dixie fig? Salted dragon?)

You need to rebatch and multiply your original oil amounts by the amount that saltedfig stated. Then you'll have a (huge) batch at the right superfat that you had planned originally.

I also agree that time alone won't be enough to sort this one out.

 

[Steve85569]

+1 to what TEG said.

I remember that experiment from this forum. What amount of water is needed?

Get ready to croak soapers...
1 quart (yes, quart) of olive oil
1 quart water
3/4 cup water (to dilute lye)
6oz lye

Lots of water and extra lye in this one. The water helped the extra sodium hydroxide become soda ash.
*I think*
I have some still on the racks that's cured and no zap.

 

[cmzaha]

What I would do is try to melt it down in the oven, remember to use stainless steel, you have a lot of lye leftover. If it melts well, then I would start adding the extra oils to make it right, mixing them well. It you do not get a good meltdown I would give up and chuck it. I do find rebatching in the oven makes a better smoother melt. You can try 170º -200º F. Since yours is hard and brittle you will probably need to add some additional liquid

 

[madison]

Hi madison, my understanding of your questions is that you want to use the lye heavy soap that you have accidentaly made, by rebatching it and adding the extra oil and water you need?

The part I am not following is the mention of citric acid and KOH, so I'll leave that part out (I'll give you the math you need instead).

When you used 339.9 grams of lye instead of the 134.6 grams, you used an additional lye amount of 339.9 - 134.6 = 205.3.
To work out how much of your original recipe you need to make again, take this extra (205.3) and divide it by the original amount (134.6, or the amount of lye to make one batch amount), and the answer will give you how many times the recipe size you need to make again (this will make more sense in a moment).

205.3/134.6 = 1.525 <= this is how many times the original batch amount you would need to make

So, take every ingredient (except NaOH) and multiply it by 1.525.

As an example, to calculate the extra beeswax, multiply 10 x 1.525 => you would add 15.25 grams of beeswax to your oil mixture (do this for every ingredient)

From there, you will need to rebatch your lye heavy soap. That part I don't really know how to do (I've never tried it) - my gut instinct would be to suggest to grate it up finely, dissolve it in the water overnight and then blend that into the oil. Hopefully someone who has tried this might offer some insight into how to rebatch it (now that the math part is done).

Thank you Saltedfig for the accurate math, I wrote the numbers off the top of my head when I posted the thread.
So, do you think the lye concentration is 75% in this batch?

I think that the mix of dixiedragon and saltedfig is best (does that make it Dixie fig? Salted dragon?)

You need to rebatch and multiply your original oil amounts by the amount that saltedfig stated. Then you'll have a (huge) batch at the right superfat that you had planned originally.

I also agree that time alone won't be enough to sort this one out.

Thank you TEG, I remember reading somewhere that you used to do HP at some point, if I am not mistaken. Can you help me with the amount of water needed in case I want to re-batch 250 g using HP? do I use the water as percent of oils choice in the calculator?
I am thinking of re-batching 4 little batches 250 grams each, this means that I have to recalculate the whole batch as 250 grams then do the math that saltedfig mentioned.

+1 to what TEG said.


Get ready to croak soapers...
1 quart (yes, quart) of olive oil
1 quart water
3/4 cup water (to dilute lye)
6oz lye

Lots of water and extra lye in this one. The water helped the extra sodium hydroxide become soda ash.
*I think*
I have some still on the racks that's cured and no zap.

Thank you Steve.
May I ask how long they have been curing on the racks? Also, when you made this batch did you plug numbers in the soap calc. using grams or ounces instead of quarts?

What I would do is try to melt it down in the oven, remember to use stainless steel, you have a lot of lye leftover. If it melts well, then I would start adding the extra oils to make it right, mixing them well. It you do not get a good meltdown I would give up and chuck it. I do find rebatching in the oven makes a better smoother melt. You can try 170º -200º F. Since yours is hard and brittle you will probably need to add some additional liquid

Thank you Carolyn. My reason to re-calculate everything is to add the right amount of oils to the extra amount of lye, now is melting them down in the oven before adding the oils will keep the SF at 2%?

 

[SaltedFig]

Thank you Saltedfig for the accurate math, I wrote the numbers off the top of my head when I posted the thread.
So, do you think the lye concentration is 75% in this batch?

No.

You said that you used the water amount for both the lye and the water, so the lye concentration is 50% (half NaOH, half water, or a 1:1 ratio).

 

[madison]

No.

You said that you used the water amount for both the lye and the water, so the lye concentration is 50% (half NaOH, half water, or a 1:1 ratio).

Yes, I used the same amount of water and lye but I don't understand why it's brittle, I used 50% lye solution before for making castile soap, (I learned it from the dish forum) it never made the soap brittle.

 

[SaltedFig]

The brittleness comes from the superfat being negative.

 

[Steve85569]

Thank you Steve.
May I ask how long they have been curing on the racks? Also, when you made this batch did you plug numbers in the soap calc. using grams or ounces instead of quarts?

They've been there a tear now. The really strange thing about this recipe is that after a couple of days the soap didn't zap. Even with all the extra lye and HUGE negative SF.
I did run the numbers through a couple of different soap calculators and had everything in grams.
The trick to doing this IF you decide to is to get the oil and water ( quarts) into emulsion BEFORE you start to add in the lye. I toasted a stick blender by not following the directions.

Then again I'm a man so ya didn't really *think* I'd follow the directions until I was good and lost did ya?!?

 

[madison]

They've been there a tear now. The really strange thing about this recipe is that after a couple of days the soap didn't zap. Even with all the extra lye and HUGE negative SF.
I did run the numbers through a couple of different soap calculators and had everything in grams.
The trick to doing this IF you decide to is to get the oil and water ( quarts) into emulsion BEFORE you start to add in the lye. I toasted a stick blender by not following the directions.

Then again I'm a man so ya didn't really *think* I'd follow the directions until I was good and lost did ya?!?

hahah I know you'd follow directions, men are good when they want to follow directions, I was just curious how you made it.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I would start by using as much water as you used originally, as a starting point. But you will have to babysit this batch to make sure that you can add any more water or any other fix that needs to be done

 

[DeeAnna]

Frankly, I'd either trash this batch and move on or fix it in a simple straightforward way. Save the ideas of citric acid and KOH and the Andalusian soapmaking method to try with a new batch of soap on another day.

You already have a complicated situation, and you're wanting to complicate it further. Please don't. Just fix the soap by rebatching with the extra fats needed to react with the NaOH, as Carolyn, The Gent, and others have suggested.

 

[shunt2011]

I have to agree with the others. Either rebatch simply or ditch it. I personally would toss it. But, I really really dislike rebatching. I had one batch seriously lye heavy (don't soap while on heavy pain meds) and forgot to add an oil. It was ditched, and I never looked back.