I did a stupid thing with my measurements

[Cortney]

and now my beautiful GM rosemary mint soap is lye heavy!

I ran out of castor oil in the middle of soaping so I just added more coconut to make up the difference. It never occurred to me that it was the different types of oils that determined the amount of lye. It was only off by 30g...

This was my original recipe-
castor oil-91.4g
coconut oil-91.4g
olive oil- 731.2g

water-347.32g
lye- 119g

When I ran out of castor I changed it to-
castor oil-71.4g
coconut oil-111.4g
olive oil- 731.2g

I thought the lye/water ratio would stay the same but when I was done I wanted to print a new recipe it changed

water-stayed the same
lye- 148.74g

I used pre measured and frozen canned goats milk and I used the 119g of lye. Lesson learned, always run it through soap calc no matter what! The soap really is beautiful and smells great too, so sad lol

 

[honor435]

wait so arent you short lye? will it still work, better short than heavy.

 

[andreja]

Well, that's weird. When I run your recipe through calculator, I see that you did just fine. You'd need 122 g of lye for 5 % superfating. So what you did with 119 g of lye is you made a soap with 7 % of superfat.
Even better than before. Unless you made mistake with those numbers.

 

[Cortney]

See that's what I thought too, better less than more. But I licked it this morning and it was a definite zap. I suppose I could have measured something wrong, maybe the prefrozen gm

 

[tangled_panda]

Sometimes the soap has to cure for a while, then it will pass the zap test. Fresh soap zaps me sometimes, but then I wait a week and it is fine

 

[Cortney]

Should I cut it now or wait a little bit?

 

[tangled_panda]

I cut my soap as soon as it was firm enough, I actually did the zap test after I cut the loaf.

 

[Cortney]

Ok new problem lol I cut into it and there is a pocket of liquid in the center about 1/3 of an inch thick. The outside is completely firm...

 

[andreja]

This pocket of liquid is it oily or is it lye? Is it big or small? only one or few?

 

[Cortney]

It's oily and kind of small. Here's a picture.

edit- It smells like my Rosemary and Peppermint EO's, I must not have mixed it properly.

 

[LJA]

Awwww. :cry: Sorry about your soap, Courtney. You did get a pocket of SOMETHING. Maybe just not mixed enough?

 

[Cortney]

Do you guys think rebatching using this tutorial would work?

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11994&highlight=rebatch

 

[MikeInPdx]

You can TRY and see how it does....just be careful and don't expect miracles (although you may get a pleasant surprise).

Personally, with a smallish batch, I doubt I would trouble with it, where it had other problems with the measurements and such. I shred those batches into some water, add a spoonful of lye, and heat until melted and then use them to clean.

 

[tangled_panda]

You could try at 50/50 rebatch.
Heat up enough oils for a small batch of soap in a crock pot, and add the shredded soap to the warm oils, let it all melt together then add your lye/liquid solution and extra fragrance. Treat it like a normal batch of CPHP soap from that point on. I liked this method a lot better then just rebatching, it seemed like it was a lot easier to handle to me.

 

[Guest]

i am sorry that happened to your soap , doggone soap fairies .

Kitn

 

[Paula58]

I would not recombine this with another batch but would toss the batch and chalk this up to experience.

Check your scale for accuracy. 5 quarters = 1 oz

 

[gekko62]

Well, that's weird. When I run your recipe through calculator, I see that you did just fine. You'd need 122 g of lye for 5 % superfating. So what you did with 119 g of lye is you made a soap with 7 % of superfat.
Even better than before. Unless you made mistake with those numbers.

yeah,you've definitely gone wrong somewhere.Using those amts,you should end up with a soap 7-8% sf. The 148g lye would mean a HUGE negative sf,so perhaps you fed too much of an oil into the calc.

All that aside,that soap does NOT look healthy.And seeing how you're not sure what went wrong,I reckon it might be a trashcan job.Sorry

 

[Cortney]

Thanks everyone. It went in the trash. My scale is good, my recipe was good, it was just a stupid error on my part. I just made a new batch of GM soap using a different technique, I'm crossing my fingers!