HELP!!

[ChaseMoney]

My name is Clay, and I'm venturing into making liquid castile soap to have my own organic products to use at home. I'm having trouble with my soap fully saponifiying. It isn't making it to the mash potato phase that leads to the translucent gel paste. Each time-3 times- it goes from the opaque yellowish beigee color to the honey colored like gel look, but it stops there. I make it on a slow cooker on low, but after 4 hours, my low temp slow cooker rises to about 197F. I have already purchased a new one, and still its the same. The temperature increases to close to 200 after 4 hours. I'm wondering if I'm stirring too often because when I do get it to the gel like look, I continue stirring every 30 minutes. I don't know what to try next.

HELP!!

 

[Prysm]

Welcome to SMF Clay!

I would post your question to the Beginners section. Here's a link.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/forums/beginners-soap-making-forum.47/

 

[AliOop]

Welcome, Chase!

There is no specific amount of time required for cooking LS. In fact, you don't have to cook it at all; just like bar soap, you can cover it and leave it to saponify on its own (cold process).

If you do prefer to cook it, then take it off the heat when the soap no longer zaps. Usually that is no longer than one hour. After it cools off, it will probably firm up into paste, as the heat will keep it in a more liquid state. If it doesn't firm up when cool, then consider your lye concentration. For liquid soap, I normally use a 3:1 water:lye ratio, aka 25% lye concentration. If you are using more water than that, your batter will remain a lot more liquid and less like a paste.

HTH!