@SaltedFig I'm glad you like my lengthy updates! I hope I'm not hijacking this thread..
You know what the weird thing is? The coconut oil soap with 30% SF gelled super fast without extra heat (30min), while the wheat germ oil at 0% superfat didn't go through gel completely, even though I had it in a very warm oven for quite a while (gave up after about 1,5 hours). So I don't think the superfat is the culprit of slow saponification in this case.
I actually did the high superfat with the coconut oil on purpose to keep the amounts of lye and water the same as with the wheat germ oil batch. I had read a bunch about the influence of water on saponification and gel phase, but couldn't find anything about the influence of the type of fat. I thought I'd have an experiment comparing wheat germ oil with CO with exactly the same amount of water and lye (that was the only way to keep both lye:water concentration and water as % of oils the same) to see the effect of the choice of oils on the speed of saponification and gel phase. I think the big difference in speed of saponification between the two suggests that hard oils are easier to gel than soft oils and that could be the reason why I didn't get the wheat germ oil (or the soap I made yesterday) to gel without added heat. But there could indeed still be other explanations! And it could also just be a one-off or something.
I opened a new can of NaOH on wednesday, so that can't really be the problem. I do agree that the small batch size could have had a huge influence on these outcomes. I imagine a smaller batch loses heat more quickly. I also didn't measure my temperatures, so maybe my coconut oil was just a lot hotter than my wheat germ oil.. I tried to have everything the same and the oils felt equally hot to the touch, but at that temperature it is hard to distinguish between 80C ouch and 90C ouch
You know what the weird thing is? The coconut oil soap with 30% SF gelled super fast without extra heat (30min), while the wheat germ oil at 0% superfat didn't go through gel completely, even though I had it in a very warm oven for quite a while (gave up after about 1,5 hours). So I don't think the superfat is the culprit of slow saponification in this case.
I actually did the high superfat with the coconut oil on purpose to keep the amounts of lye and water the same as with the wheat germ oil batch. I had read a bunch about the influence of water on saponification and gel phase, but couldn't find anything about the influence of the type of fat. I thought I'd have an experiment comparing wheat germ oil with CO with exactly the same amount of water and lye (that was the only way to keep both lye:water concentration and water as % of oils the same) to see the effect of the choice of oils on the speed of saponification and gel phase. I think the big difference in speed of saponification between the two suggests that hard oils are easier to gel than soft oils and that could be the reason why I didn't get the wheat germ oil (or the soap I made yesterday) to gel without added heat. But there could indeed still be other explanations! And it could also just be a one-off or something.
I opened a new can of NaOH on wednesday, so that can't really be the problem. I do agree that the small batch size could have had a huge influence on these outcomes. I imagine a smaller batch loses heat more quickly. I also didn't measure my temperatures, so maybe my coconut oil was just a lot hotter than my wheat germ oil.. I tried to have everything the same and the oils felt equally hot to the touch, but at that temperature it is hard to distinguish between 80C ouch and 90C ouch