Re: dilution: I'm partial to Carrie's method (3bees~1flower from the Dish), which is the canning jar method. Everything is contained in a sealed environment so that evaporation is kept to the barest minimum, and I am better able to see what is going on as often as I like from the top to the bottom clarity-wise/viscosity-wise without ever un-screwing the lid and causing needless evaporation- by just lifting the jar out of the pot of boiling water and tilting it/swirling it.
In comparison, if I were diluting in a crockpot, the only way I would be able to judge how things were progressing throughout the dilution would be to lift the lid and give things a stir, which would cause evaporation over a large surface area every time I decided I wanted to check on things.... which increases the potential of negatively effecting the overall consistency of my finished soap.
IrishLass[/QUOTE
Well now I understand why you recommend the canning jar method - I will find out if just using the crock pot works for such a small amount for my own use. If it doesn't work out - not much paste was wasted!
You are not a pain.
I'm not sure if you saw one of the edits (in red) that I added to my post in the Soapmaking 101 thread explaining how I make my glycerin liquid soap, but I mix my KOH differently nowadays. Instead of cooking the KOH and glycerin together until the KOH dissolves, I dissolve the KOH in an equal amount of room temp. distilled water by weight- which takes only about a minute, if that- then I add my regular recipe amount of glycerin (at room temp) to the solution before adding to my melted oils/fats. It's so much easier and even less fussy.
IrishLass
Is there a place where recipes or this recipe from Irish Lass may be found?I just recently made my first batch of GLS from IL's instructions and they couldn't be more thorough! I did not cook anything after mixing lye and oils and it turned out perfect. I did use a stick blender, and I gotta say....reached the flying bubble stage with both batches I've made, and both times it made me giggle! Went to zap-free paste in less than 2 hours without touching it or cooking it.
I dilute exactly like IL's instructions, as well. I put my paste, distilled water, and SL in a wide-mouth half-gallon sized canning jar and then let it sit in a simmering hot water bath on top of the stove until it's soft enough to stick blend. Then I let it sit to settle, cool, and dissolve and top foam before I add FO and PS80, and then bottle it.
I read forever, too, before I actually took the liquid soap plunge, and it was so much easier than I ever thought it would be, thanks to Irish Lass and her fabulous instructions.
Just do it!
