Help with VERY quick trace

[BankerJohn]

I made my first soap with my 2 daughters ages 10 & 13 this evening and had a problem with going to trace way TOO quickly. Can someone please give advice on modifying this for next time?

7oz Palm Oil
7oz Coconut Oil 76deg
6oz Olive Oil
2oz Castor Oil
2oz Shea Butter
1oz Sweet Almond Oil
1oz Avocado Oil
1oz Stearic Acid
10.3oz Chilled flat Miller High Life
3.8oz Lye
Titanium Dioxide (white)
Cellini Red color (pink grapefruit to plum color)
Tangerine Wow (canteloupe)
Fizzy Lemonade (yellow)
bottle of Bramble Berry "Pinot Grigio" scent

I mixed colors in the Sweet Almond Oil mixing 1/4oz oil per color and set aside after wisking.
Heated oils to melt and cooled to 105
Mixed Lye with flat beer chilled to 34 degrees; stirred lye in slowly then cooled lye solution to 105.
Poured in the Lye/beer solution into the Oils. Before I could rinse and fill the lye cotainer with water, the mix started to saponify. I stirred the solution with the mixer head and before hitting the button, it was getting thick. I stick mixed for about 4-5 quick pulses and stirred/swirled it. It was already at trace and moving uquickly. Separated the mix into 4 mixing bowls to add colors. By now it was too thick to stick blend and had to use a spatula. divided the Bramble Berry "Pinot Grigio" scent between the 4 colors and again only used a spatula. By now it is at STIFF peaks and cannot pour to make the swirls. {my daughters were dissapointed} we had to spoon globs into the mold, alternating colors. Then tapped the (more like banged the crap out of) the mold to release bubbles. Used a wooded skewer to make figure 8 swirls. Banged the crap out of the wooden mold again and popped it in a 170 oven for 1hr. Turned oven off and am leaving it in there overnight to slowly cool.

So my question is this... what caused the mix to trace so darn quick? What could I do different next time to slow it down and still have a pourable trace so we can make swirls?

Thanks in advance for all of your help.

 

[christinak]

Hi John, well I'm sorry your girls were disappointed but at least you did something together! The main reason for your quick trace is the beer! It speeds it up SUPER fast...I actually posted on this recently. If you notice something setting up really fast, just stir it by hand because the whole point of a stick blender is to speed up trace You went double-duty on it.

Your recipe doesn't really need anything at 1% unless it's like beeswax.....oils at that low percentage aren't really contributing. I didn't run this thru soapcalc (but I am hoping you did that before you made it!). Keep it simple...palm, coconut, olive, and castor are really your basic ingredients here.

Good luck on your next batch and just shoot for water/lye....when you start subbing for water you are going to speed up trace.

 

[Badger]

My guess is it was the beer that caused it to trace fast, I have read other people saying that beer soaps have traced super fast for them as well.

 

[BankerJohn]

Also, how will I know when it is ready to unmold and cut? I've seen a lot of folks say 24 hours. How do I know when it is the right hardness (soft enough to cut well and not too hard to cut)?

 

[christinak]

Most people will tell you to wait 24 hours but I cut mine between 8 to 10. If the mold is cool to the touch and the top is hard when I press on it, I cut it. I have very little patience and make lots of batches so with only 2 molds I have to keep things moving!

 

[Linedog]

+1 on the beer, my beer soap trace snuck up on me real quick!

 

[Desert Karen]

The first thing I thought of when I was the list of ingredient's was it seemed awfully busy to me. As gramma to ten, IMHO I'd say, keep it simple so the kids can capture what you are teaching them. My own 9 year old grand daughter, Kayla, got to watch me make soap for the first time last night. It was for my facial soap, where the only "extra" type oils I used was Apricot Kernal oil. I kept the additives to one color and one clay, a few drops of EO and a "blend" of FO, as in, I needed to use up the citrus scents. By the time I got to the point of making swirls, she was gone and in front of grandpa's computer.

 

[AngelMomma]

I made beer soap and I had WAY plenty of time to even do a swirl. I also used the beer as 100% of my liquid. I used a recipe with almost 50% olive oil. A soap with more olive will trace slower. Also adding the STERIC ACID will certainly speed up trace! With having the Palm and Coconut oils there really is no need to add the steric. Of course this doesn't take into consideration the FO. I have never used that FO.

 

[BankerJohn]

I varied the recipe a little today making 2 other batches. no Beer on the second batch nd it still siezed. Third batch removed the Stearic Acid. It was he stearic acid that was the culprit.

2nd batch was a Peaches & Creme (Titanium Dioxide and Tangerine Wow swirls using Bramble Berry "Southern Peach" FO). CPOP at 170 for 1 hour.

3rd batch is called Lazy Lime. Lime & Grapefruit scents. Colors are Titanium Dioxide, Green Chrome Oxide and Fizzy Lemonade. Since we were able to get a VERY light trace, we put the different colors in Ketchup squirt bottles and alternated in the log mold, swirling the top 1/2" before CPOP at 170.

Counting all 3 batches, that would be 46 bars :smile::crazy:

 

[sistrum]

Just now read this and I was going to say steric also but it looks like you already figured it out. Glad everything is going good for you now.

 

[AngelMomma]

Yay! Happy you got to have some fun with it and that they worked out. Now if we could only see pictures when you cut them