pjknight
Well-Known Member
I had already made the loaf without the hemp adjustment, unfortunately. Is there anyway to make a small batch without having to make an entire loaf as an experiment to see if the adjustments work?
How much citric acid for this recipe?
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pjknight
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pjknight
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pjknight
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I don't add ROE to my bottle of Hemp. I add it after I measure the amount for an individual recipe, then add it to the hemp oil. Yes, I am very careful of the amount. It isn't very much at all!
Hemp oil oxidizes extremely quickly once exposed to air. Consider adding enough ROE to treat the entire bottle, as soon as you open the bottle for the first time. Besides having a greater preventative effect due to adding it right away, this also has the advantage of measuring once, rather than measuring out multiple, teeny-tiny amounts for each batch of soap.
Of course, you can use any calculator to scale your recipe down, that way all percentages need to be scaled down too - including citric acid and additional NaOH. Or, you can use this lye calculator which does the whole math for you, once you add citric acid as an additive - so no calculation by you is required in this case.
Would you like to share the full recipe you used, so we can brainstorm what's off with it and why it turned out softer than usual?
pjknight
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pjknight
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Sure! Here it is -water as percent of oil 33%, super fat 5% Lye concentration 30.525%, water ; lye ratio 2.2759:1, water 26.40 ounces, lye, 11.60 ounces, oils 80 ounces, fragrance 5 ounces,. the oil breakdown is coconut oil 76, 25 ounces, cocoa butter, 10 ounces,
hemp oil, 10 ounces, olive oil, 15 ounces, palm oil 20 ounces, 22.67 g citric acid in lye water, 14.15 g extra lye to offset citric acid eatup. I used brambleberry FO. As for my scale, I use a very accurate scale which I test with a 100 gram weight. hope this helps!
hemp oil, 10 ounces, olive oil, 15 ounces, palm oil 20 ounces, 22.67 g citric acid in lye water, 14.15 g extra lye to offset citric acid eatup. I used brambleberry FO. As for my scale, I use a very accurate scale which I test with a 100 gram weight. hope this helps!
Have you always used that lye concentration - around 30%? Seems a little low for CP, and the only likely reason for the soft soap at this point to me. 33-35% would mean less water to evaporate and hence a harder soap, ready to unmold at an earlier stage. This is the only thing that seems off to me. Just keep in mind that I didn't run your numbers through the calculator to double check and I just assume everything is correct.
Did you, by any chance, lower the lye concentration because of the additional NaOH, to "compensate" of sort? You shouldn't, because that additional NaOH gets neutralized and doesn't increase the concentration of the solution. Quite the opposite, actually ‐ the reaction with the citric acid adds a little bit of additional water to your liquid solution and makes the overall concentration just a little bit lower (soapers usually ignore that little amount of additional water). Just my thoughts, the problem may be hiding somewhere else
Did you, by any chance, lower the lye concentration because of the additional NaOH, to "compensate" of sort? You shouldn't, because that additional NaOH gets neutralized and doesn't increase the concentration of the solution. Quite the opposite, actually ‐ the reaction with the citric acid adds a little bit of additional water to your liquid solution and makes the overall concentration just a little bit lower (soapers usually ignore that little amount of additional water). Just my thoughts, the problem may be hiding somewhere else
pjknight
Well-Known Member
pjknight
Well-Known Member
pjknight
Well-Known Member
yes, i've always used that lye concentration and I always had a nice hard bar. i didn't lower the amount of lye I used or the water amount. I used the recipe as is and the only adjustment was the additional lye (14.15 g) on top of what I normally use, (11.60 ounces) and added citric acid at 22.67. Those are the only adjustment to the recipie I used. Not sure I understand the chemistry of this, so if I used more initially say as an example 12 ounces lye , and less water, I would have a harder bar when using citric acid? or softer bar? I did put the recipe thru the lye calc that gives you additional ingredients to add to the recipie ie: citric acid with no problem I could determine. But it never occured to me that I needed to lower water or raise lye content. Thoughts?
soapersteve
New Member
Keep it simple. 1% of oils CA, + 1% Sodium Gluconate. Then add .624xCA of more lye. Keep the SF low at 3% to 5%. You won't entirely eliminate the scum, but this will help.
Citric acid/sodium citrate doesn't make a soft bar, there must be something else. Yes, you can decrease the SF and that will help with hardness, but what bugs me is that you say you used to get hard soap with the same SF and no other changes to the recipe everytime.
Did you manage to unmold amd cut now?
Did you manage to unmold amd cut now?
pjknight
Well-Known Member
The loaf is harder today. I am going to cut it today to see how the inside is. (when I press it with my finger, it would make a dent if I do it really hard) Maybe it just needs a longer period in the loaf before cutting. I took it out of the mold the next day after I made it as I usually do. As for hardness of my bars, the quality range is 49., they are super hard every time and I have never had a batch turn out bad, except recently with the DOS. I alway have the SF (super fat ) at 5%, and have never changed my recipe because it was always successful. It cuts smoothly, cured in about 3-4 weeks, Feel free to put the recipe in the soap calc. Maybe I'm missing something.? Ill get back to you and let you know how the cutting turned out later in the afternoon. Thanks so much for your imput, I really appreciate it. As for moving forward, I will pick your brain to figure out if there is an adjustment or adjustments to be made....
You are welcome! With CP soaps it can often take a couple of days before you can unmold and cut with no issue, unless one or more of the following apply: high % hard fats, added salt, added SL, used vinegar as liquid or added sodium acetate, waxes used, or there's water discount. HTH!
pjknight
Well-Known Member
sorry i was'nt able to get back sooner, but had unexpected company, anyway, I just cut the soap. It cut smoothly, the color is consistent, and the bar is soft. On the second picture, I cut 1/8th in off the first bar to see if i could press down on it and make marks. and I was able to press down firmly and make marks in the bar. All the bars look the same and they are all soft. I don't think they are going to change much. This loaf has not performed like any loaf I have made. I usually cut the bars on the second day or so, sometimes waitng 4 or 5 days. Those bars have always cut smoothy, and they are nice and hard when I cut, not soft at all, but I can tell when they cure further, that the bars are going to be really nice and hard. Not so with this loaf. So there it is. any and all thoughts?
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Did you run it through a soap calculator? I always use Soapmaking Friend and know I can feel comfortable with my recipes.
What a mysterious situation! Do you think it's at all possible your lye might be weakening? Asking because I had that happen to me a year or 2 ago. I didn't make soap for a month or two, and then made a couple of loaves that seemed to stay soft for longer than usual. I didn't worry about it at the time (though perhaps I should have!) because they did harden up several days later, and I put it down to bad measurement on my part, or rainy weather, or anything else I could think of. Then I made a loaf that failed completely. It never hardened, and had a disgusting texture — I kept one bar and it is still soft and yucky after all this time. Because it was the only thing I could think of to do, I tried a new bottle of lye and everything about my soap went back to normal!
I have no idea if that is what has happened to you, but thought I'd mention it in case you want to try a new bottle of lye to see if it helps. If someone else already asked, I apologize for missing it! Oh, and in case it's useful, here is the formula you gave listed out in SoapCalc, re-sized down to use only 16 ounces of oils. Good luck with your next batches!
I have no idea if that is what has happened to you, but thought I'd mention it in case you want to try a new bottle of lye to see if it helps. If someone else already asked, I apologize for missing it! Oh, and in case it's useful, here is the formula you gave listed out in SoapCalc, re-sized down to use only 16 ounces of oils. Good luck with your next batches!
It will get harder with time - with enough cure it will get much harder than that and it will be more or less like your other soap. But it may take months for it.
What @A-Polly says is true. @pjknight have you noticed how hot your lye solution got upon mixing? When I slowly dissolve NaOH in RT water it gets to around 93 C (pretty hot, imagine close to the boiling point of pure water). People whose NaOH has weakened usually report solution that gets to a much lower temp. Weak NaOH leads to higher SF and therefore soft soap - there's a high chance that was the case. Thanks to @A-Polly for the suggestion!
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