How To Use Soap Calc Tutorial

[pamarachi500]

Yes, it is.

Will I understand much in the forum. I can fill the table but don't understand fully the exact thing am doing like, superfat
Lye
Water
Fragrance ie

 

[shunt2011]

Will I understand much in the forum. I can fill the table but don't understand fully the exact thing am doing like, superfat
Lye
Water
Fragrance ie

Here's a good place to read on many subjects regarding soapmaking. You need to take time to educate yourself on what things in the lye calculator mean. I truly helps. I also recommend you read the most current 10 pages in each of the forums (beginners and lye). There's a lot of information to glean from it. Superfat is a personal preference. People use anywhere from 2% to 7 or 8 %. It generally depends on what oils/butters you are using.

https://classicbells.com/soap/soapyStuff.asp

 

[michael732]

Will I understand much in the forum. I can fill the table but don't understand fully the exact thing am doing like, superfat
Lye
Water
Fragrance ie

I like to tinker with soapcalc. I change recipies and change the % of super fat, I note the the lye amounts. Just search recipies that use percentages of oil and plug them in and tweak them just to see what happens.

And also, super fat is the amount of oils that are not changed to soap via the saponification process. I like to think of it as a buffer to ensure i don't create a lye heavy soap.

 

[pamarachi500]

Can superfat be increase from 5-10

 

[shunt2011]

Can superfat be increase from 5-10

You can set your superfat to whatever you want. It would depend on your recipe. You may be better to start a new thread with your questions. Also to go to the introduction forum and tell us a bit about yourself.

 

[pamarachi500]

I have done that before

 

[Treats Soapworks]

This is for the newbies who are new to the world of soap-making. soapcalc.net is actually my favorite online calculator to use. It is intimidating with all the things that you have to enter, but it gets easier to use as time passes. My hope is that this post helps to demystify soapcalc, section by section (listing numbers correspond to the section):


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1. Type of lye is where you select the lye you want to use. You may already know this, but sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is used for making bar soaps whereas potassium hydroxide (KOH) is used for making liquid soaps.

2. Weight of oils simply allows you to select the measuring weight you want to use. There is also a green box below to enter the amount of oils you will use if you choose to view the recipe in percentages. Details about that will be addressed later.

3. Water as % of oils asks you for the amount of water you plan to use. If you are a newbie, I'd suggest you stick with this option until you feel more comfortable using the water:lye ratio or the lye concentration options. Also note that the soap will trace faster if you use a lower percentage of water. That is referred to a water discount.

4. Super fat is where you enter how much of a lye discount you want for your soap. The higher the SF%, the more oils will be left in the soap for the conditioning. However, higher SF% may also make your soap prone to DOS, depending on the oils used and how much you are superfatting. As a note, superfatting with a specific oil can only be done in the HP method of soap making. Lye converts oils indiscriminately into soap, so the SF is often referred to the lye discount.

Below Super Fat is Fragrance. By default, .5oz/lb is figured into the recipe.

5. Soap qualities in the white column describes the qualities that each oil, butter, or fat contributes to the soap. Additionally, the white column also provides information on the fatty acid molecules that is found in a particular oil, butter, or fat. The numbers in the green column shows the properties of the soap based on which oils, butters or fats are found in the calculated recipe.

More information can be seen when you hover the mouse icon over each of qualities listed, but I'll probably post a link for further explanation.

Oils, fats, and waxes is a list of many ingredients that can be used to make soap. Below that list are two boxes that show the saponification values for both NaOH and KOH. You may already know that saponification is the process that converts oils and lye into soap and glycerine. The values below the list will vary depending on the oil you select.

6. Recipe oil list is where the selected oils will be listed. The add button will add the selected oil to the list while the remove button will remove the oil from the list (depending on the number entered in the green box next to it). Please note that the red plus and minus signs will allow you to swipe out an oil from the recipe much more easily than using the remove button. That is just my opinion, however.

The two columns with the dots above them give you the option of viewing the recipe in percentages or by the weight you selected in section 2. In whichever column you select, you can enter the amount of oil that you plan to use.

The drop-down box that reads recipe 1 is available for you to save multiple recipes. You can save up to 8 recipes, but be careful as you will lose the recipes if you are on a private browser or if you delete your cookies.

7. When you are done making your recipe, press the calculate recipe button so that you can view the recipe. You will also be able to see the soap's qualities in section 5.

After the recipe is calculated, you have the option of viewing the recipe on another page (from which you can print it if need be). Two selectable options are also available for easier viewing. Multiple tabs allow you to view multiple recipes in different tabs while bold adds a bold effect to the number values.

Lastly, the reset all button will send your page into the default setting. That said, be careful not to press it.

Here are some additional links that I hope will be helpful:

1. Post #8 on this thread gives a good overview on how the type of lye and oil used in soap-making effects the outcome of the soap.
2. Simplified information on the fatty acids can be found here and here.
3. Soap dish also has a chart of what fatty acid is found in a specific oil.

Could you please tell me how to calculate the amount of oils for a specified weight? Example I have all the percentages but none of the quantities for a particular recipe. So if my mold holds 50 ounces, and I have a recipe with the following:

45 % EVOO
30 % Coconut 76
12 % Cocoa
10 % Avo Oil
3 % Castor
7% superfat
25% H20

How do I calculate the amount of oils for the mold and plug into soap calc?

Please and Thank you!!! Here is my soap calc.

I soaped at 75 degrees in the room, @ 87 degrees batter, over stick blended a little. The batter got thick extremely quickly after adding color and FO, and this should have been slow moving, used midnight waters from BB, which has notes saying only slightly accelerates.

So if someone could also make some comments on the fragrance portion of Soap Calc that would be great!!

 

[amd]

Could you please tell me how to calculate the amount of oils for a specified weight?

How do I calculate the amount of oils for the mold and plug into soap calc?

The soap calc will do that for you. This is from soapcalc.net, but most soap calcs work the same.

Select the units you want the recipe to be in and the total amount of oils.

When you list your oils just keep the % and when you calculate recipe it will give you the amounts of each oil.

Soapcalc.net does not help you calculate for a total batch weight of 50oz though - I was confused by your question which way you were trying to figure things out.

 

[Loni S]

I've tried running my goat's milk soap recipe through the calculator following your instructions, but can't find anywhere to add the goat's milk? This is my recipe:

36oz olive oil
12oz grapeseed oil
8oz goats milk (that I add to the oils)
16oz coconut oil

10oz water
8.9oz lye

Trying to put this through numerous soap calculators has stumped me numerous times!!! So, I'm fairly intimidated by them still . Any help you can give me would be SO MUCH appreciated!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I've tried running my goat's milk soap recipe through the calculator following your instructions, but can't find anywhere to add the goat's milk?

Hiya Loni!

The goat's milk is used for the water portion to make the lye solution. That's the short answer. The longer answer involves soaping "cool" to prevent the GM from scorching. This technique has been discussed many times. You can do a search by using the magnifying glass icon in the top menu, upper right corner of this page.

Once you have your recipe, you can go to the RECIPE FEEDBACK Forum for input.

And here is a link to SoapCalc which is the lye calculator shown in the post above.

 

[Loni S]

The goat's milk is used for the water portion to make the lye solution. That's the short answer. The longer answer involves soaping "cool" to prevent the GM from scorching. This technique has been discussed many times. You can do a search by using the magnifying glass icon in the top menu, upper right corner of this page.

That totally makes sense, thank you! But it does lead me to another question - what about the fat content of the milk? I imagine it wouldn't be taken into consideration if the GM is added & included in the water amount, so wouldn't that have an affect on the superfat and/or amount of lye needed?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

That totally makes sense, thank you! But it does lead me to another question - what about the fat content of the milk? I imagine it wouldn't be taken into consideration if the GM is added & included in the water amount, so wouldn't that have an affect on the superfat and/or amount of lye needed?

Correct. That has been discussed many times. Search "Goat Milk Soaps".

 

[StainsAndGrains]

I hope this hasn't been asked, I wasn't able to find an answer to this through search so I figured i'd ask...is there a way when using the calculator to START with the total amount of pre-pour soap volume you want to have? I'd like the option to say "I want to make a batch thats 1900ml total volume, using these oils, etc, and then it spits out the amount of each oil, lye, water to use depending on what %lye I want to use.
It seems like a logical thing to start with the batch volume you want to make right? I'm a newb but it would seem that people want to make batches in certain sizes to fit their molds, am I missing some super obvious way to do this?

 

[KimW]

I hope this hasn't been asked, I wasn't able to find an answer to this through search so I figured i'd ask...is there a way when using the calculator to START with the total amount of pre-pour soap volume you want to have? I'd like the option to say "I want to make a batch thats 1900ml total volume, using these oils, etc, and then it spits out the amount of each oil, lye, water to use depending on what %lye I want to use.
It seems like a logical thing to start with the batch volume you want to make right? I'm a newb but it would seem that people want to make batches in certain sizes to fit their molds, am I missing some super obvious way to do this?

Hiya! Yes. There is an option: "Resize your recipe to fit mold size ?" where you can size the recipe based on dimensions or volume (total size) of a mold. Be aware that it is only accurate if you leave all amount defaults "as is" in the calculator. So, you must leave the "Amount of Liquid in recipe", "Superfat" and "Fragrances" at default settings. I'm sure it will be fixed one day, but for now that's its one flaw to consider.
ETA: The "dimensions" option also currently only works with rectangular/square molds. Pretty sure they're working on getting it fixed for cylinders, but I just checked and the cylinder "by dimensions" isn't working yet (though it will of course work with the above mentioned caveats it you plug in the volume).

 

[StainsAndGrains]

Hiya! Yes. There is an option: "Resize your recipe to fit mold size ?" where you can size the recipe based on dimensions or volume (total size) of a mold. Be aware that it is only accurate if you leave all amount defaults "as is" in the calculator. So, you must leave the "Amount of Liquid in recipe", "Superfat" and "Fragrances" at default settings. I'm sure it will be fixed one day, but for now that's its one flaw to consider.
ETA: The "dimensions" option also currently only works with rectangular/square molds. Pretty sure they're working on getting it fixed for cylinders, but I just checked and the cylinder "by dimensions" isn't working yet (though it will of course work with the above mentioned caveats it you plug in the volume).

Can you be a bit more specific i'm not seeing that option anywhere on soapcalc.net

 

[AliOop]

Can you be a bit more specific i'm not seeing that option anywhere on soapcalc.net

It is not on SoapCalc - it is in SoapmakingFriend.com.

 

[KimW]

Can you be a bit more specific i'm not seeing that option anywhere on soapcalc.net

oops - My apologies!! I should have been more careful with my reading of your post. As @AliOop said, I was referencing Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator. So very sorry about that!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

.is there a way when using the calculator to START with the total amount of pre-pour soap volume you want to have? I'd like the option to say "I want to make a batch thats 1900ml total volume, using these oils, etc, and then it spits out the amount of each oil, lye, water to use depending on what %lye I want to use.

You need to figure the amount of oils/fats you need to make the amount of soap you want to make. There's a formula for doing that. For example, I know my Crafters Choice Silicone Loaf Mold 1501 holds 44 oz max. soap
44 oz. soap/ 1.37 = 32 oz. oils/fats
I don't want my mold to overflow, so I use 30 oz. oils/fats.
30 oz. wt. oils X 1.37 = 41 oz. soap
Once you know the amount of oils/fats you need, the rest is fairly easy to calculate. It's best to use the default settings at the beginning. After that, once you have a better understanding, you can change them.

All measurements are by weight, not volume. So instead of 1900ml total volume
Use 1900 grams total weight ( however much 1900ml weighs).

It is up to you to decide how much of each oil to use. If you go to the Beginners Forum, look for a simple tried and true recipe to play with until you get the hang of it. Make small 12-16 oz. batches to start with.

HTH (Hope This Helps!) and HAPPY SOAPING!

 

[aosproducts]

Nice post, we really love it to share the thought of this tutorial at our profile, ok, can we share it?

 

[Krn]

Soap very very newbie

Hi everyone
I see the soap calc online but how do you know how much the recipe will yield? I have a 4 lb loaf mold and would like the recipes to fit that. Thanks. Any info would be helpful

After calculating the recipe, the total weights are listed under the oils, lists in pounds, ounces and grams.