If I wanted tiny bubbles, I would have cracked open a bottle of champagne!

[rparrny]

What happened here? Oils had no air bubbles in them, I burped my stick blender and I pounded the loaf good before I swirled. I CPOPed them in a 170 oven for one hour and now I have all these tiny bubbles! What did I do wrong? Even the very thin layer of batter that clung to the sides have these bubbles...did I do something wrong with the CPOP?

 

[dibbles]

I'm not too good at diagnosing, but I've had that happen to me. I think can happen when you CPOP in silicone for too long and the soap kind of 'cooks'. My soap also had tiny holes all over the sides. I planed it, but it is fine as is - just cosmetic.

Nice colors and good job on the swirl though:-D

 

[IrishLass]

Yep- looks to me that your CPOP temp was probably too hot and for too long. I no longer do CPOP for that very reason. Nowadays, I only preheat my oven to 105-110 (takes all of 3 minutes), and then I immediately turn it off (and keep it off) before I stick my soap inside for the night. I've found that to actually be plenty enough heat to get a full-gel in my soaps. Oh, I should probably mention (because it matters) that I mostly soap with a 33% lye concentration, and my soaping temps range between 110F -120F.


IrishLass

 

[rparrny]

I'm not too good at diagnosing, but I've had that happen to me. I think can happen when you CPOP in silicone for too long and the soap kind of 'cooks'. My soap also had tiny holes all over the sides. I planed it, but it is fine as is - just cosmetic.

Nice colors and good job on the swirl though:-D

Funny you should say that cause I just read an article about CPOP where the author used 170 for 10 minutes only and then turns off the oven. So maybe the bubbles are just on the top and I can plane them off?

 

[dibbles]

Funny you should say that cause I just read an article about CPOP where the author used 170 for 10 minutes only and then turns off the oven. So maybe the bubbles are just on the top and I can plane them off?

I had bubbles all over the outside - all sides. It was my first CPOP. I just planed the bars to get rid of them. I have a warming drawer in my oven, and I have used that instead. I think my oven runs hot, and 170 is the lowest setting. The warming drawer doesn't get as hot.

 

[rparrny]

Ah!!! I have a proofing drawer that would be perfect, I don't know why I never thought of it!

 

[commoncenz]

When I CPOP, I preheat my oven to 170, then turn it off. I open the door a little and after 10 - 15 minutes or so, I put my soap in the oven, close the door and leave it to sit. If I'm soaping during the day, I let it sit for about 2 hours, remove it, cover with a towel and put it in an out of the way place. If I'm soaping at night, I just leave it in the oven til morning.

I always thought that the purpose of CPOP was to "jump start" gel. So to me leaving the soap in an oven with the heat on never made sense.

Lately, I've just been setting my soap batter filled mold on a heating pad and covering with an old baby blanket. The heating pad has a safety feature that shuts it off after an hour and I've found that by that time gel has been jump started. Easy-Peezy and you don't have to worry about preheating the oven; when to take it out, etc. etc.

 

[dibbles]

Gel phase has been hit or miss for me. I want my soaps to gel, and thought I'd found the answer when I got a silicone lined wood mold. Gelled every time. Then not. I've used a heating pad (mine also shuts off after an hour) and wrapped in towels. And restarted the heating pad. Everything gets warm, but no gel. Sometimes, hours (and hours) later it will warm up again and sometimes gel. I have no idea if this is normal. I have started soaping cooler (95-100), and am thinking this might be part of the problem. But the cooler temps give me more time to play with Secret Feathers and the like.

 

[commoncenz]

Gel phase has been hit or miss for me. I want my soaps to gel, and thought I'd found the answer when I got a silicone lined wood mold. Gelled every time. Then not. I've used a heating pad (mine also shuts off after an hour) and wrapped in towels. And restarted the heating pad. Everything gets warm, but no gel. Sometimes, hours (and hours) later it will warm up again and sometimes gel. I have no idea if this is normal. I have started soaping cooler (95-100), and am thinking this might be part of the problem. But the cooler temps give me more time to play with Secret Feathers and the like.

I just (this weekend) started working with masterbatched oils and lye and soaping with them at room temperature. I've noticed that unless I get my batter to around light trace (i.e. just past emulsion), it takes a little longer for my batter to heat up; even with a heating pad. Once it starts to heat up though, everything seems to progress as normal.

Today I used a thicker blanket on my last batch just to see if that helped speed up the process and it really seemed to work.

*EDIT: rparrny, there are a few older threads on the forum that mention that CPOP with silicone can cause air bubbles on the outer surface of your soap. According to these threads, it may have something to do with the hotness of the gel phase and the silicone not allowing the soap to breath causing the soap to somewhat boil while in the oven.

Here's a link to one of the threads and another to the sitecomber.com search I performed to find these threads

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=36421

http://sitecomber.com/search.php?domains=www.sitecomber.com&client=pub-1307489338039489&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23FFFFFF%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A150567%3BALC%3A000000%3BLC%3A000000%3BT%3A0000FF%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BLH%3A0%3BLW%3A0%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fsitecomber.com%2Flogo-490x90.jpg%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sitecomber.com%3BFORID%3A11&hl=en&channel=5823071447&q=air+bubbles+in+soap+silicone+mold&sitesearch=soapmakingforum.com&sa=Search&safe=active

 

[dibbles]

Commoncenz, thank you for your thoughts. I'm in MN, and with the colder months ahead I think I'm just going to have to toasty those soapies up in warmer jammies and blankets!

 

[penelopejane]

What happened here? Oils had no air bubbles in them, I burped my stick blender and I pounded the loaf good before I swirled. I CPOPed them in a 170 oven for one hour and now I have all these tiny bubbles! What did I do wrong? Even the very thin layer of batter that clung to the sides have these bubbles...did I do something wrong with the CPOP?

Fantastic swirls [emoji41][emoji41][emoji41]
Pity about the bubbles.
Thanks for sharing the lesson.

 

[rparrny]

Thanks all for giving me all the information on this. I can see several issues here...not only did I leave the oven on for an hour at 170 but I have a pizza stone in each of my ovens and I'm sure that didn't help. The proofing drawer I have will hold even my slab mold and I can ensure the temp is much lower and turn it off after a few minutes. I'm glad I can plane these bars cause this particular loaf was made for the big boss at work with EO's he requested.

 

[navigator9]

Yep- looks to me that your CPOP temp was probably too hot and for too long. I no longer do CPOP for that very reason. Nowadays, I only preheat my oven to 105-110 (takes all of 3 minutes), and then I immediately turn it off (and keep it off) before I stick my soap inside for the night. I've found that to actually be plenty enough heat to get a full-gel in my soaps. Oh, I should probably mention (because it matters) that I mostly soap with a 33% lye concentration, and my soaping temps range between 110F -120F.


IrishLass

IL, I don't know when CPOP turned into cooking the soap. The method you detail above, is what I've always considered to be CPOP. That was the method I learned, I don't know, 9 or so years ago. But now I read about leaving the oven on for hours, and I don't know how that started or where it came from, but if your aim is just to insure gel all the way to the edges, there's no need to "cook" the soap! Gel is not a problem, but overheating can cause all sorts of problems. Prewarm the oven and the mold, stick the soap in there, turn off the oven and leave it overnight. That's all it takes.

 

[kchaystack]

IL, I don't know when CPOP turned into cooking the soap. The method you detail above, is what I've always considered to be CPOP. That was the method I learned, I don't know, 9 or so years ago. But now I read about leaving the oven on for hours, and I don't know how that started or where it came from, but if your aim is just to insure gel all the way to the edges, there's no need to "cook" the soap! Gel is not a problem, but overheating can cause all sorts of problems. Prewarm the oven and the mold, stick the soap in there, turn off the oven and leave it overnight. That's all it takes.

I have seen people talking about this too. I do not CPOP more because I soap in my basement, and carrying a mold full of liquid soap up stairs seems like a bad idea to me (and I am lazy).

But lots of people are baking their batches for hours, which is not how I have ever read it is done.

I use the heating pad, a box to over the soap and a blanket. Sometimes I have to do 2 cycles on high to get it to gel.

 

[galaxyMLP]

I gel all of my soaps (not enough room in fridge or feezer to not gel!)

I soaped a 45% lye concentration castile the other day and it took 30 minutes at 170 F for just to see the beginning signs of gel. Once I did, I turned the oven off and left the soap in there all night. The very very edges are still not gelled so next time I will leave it until most of it is gelling before shutting the oven off. In this case, its the really low water content that casued it to take so long with so much added heat to gel. Plus, I was using a very well behaved FO.

All of my other recipes go in the oven the is preheated to 170 then turned off unless I can already feel the soap is getting hot. Then I just insulate and let be.

 

[amd]

Commoncenz, thank you for your thoughts. I'm in MN, and with the colder months ahead I think I'm just going to have to toasty those soapies up in warmer jammies and blankets!

Dibbles, I'm in SD and I fought with trying to get soap to gel all last winter. I finally have wooden loaf molds so the idea of putting my soap in a warmed oven isn't quite so scary. My bf made my molds - he made one from a soft wood and one from a hard wood - the hard wood gels beautifully covered with just a layered towel.

 

[dibbles]

I'm not the OP, but thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[Spice]

Thanks all for giving me all the information on this. I can see several issues here...not only did I leave the oven on for an hour at 170 but I have a pizza stone in each of my ovens and I'm sure that didn't help. The proofing drawer I have will hold even my slab mold and I can ensure the temp is much lower and turn it off after a few minutes. I'm glad I can plane these bars cause this particular loaf was made for the big boss at work with EO's he requested.

Still a newbie here, never done a CPOP, what is "plane"?:?:

 

[commoncenz]

Still a newbie here, never done a CPOP, what is "plane"?:?:

Plane means to use a soap planer (shaver) to "beautify" your soap by making it more square, removing imperfections, beveling the edges, etc.

Here's a picture of a planer:

 

[navigator9]

I have seen people talking about this too. I do not CPOP more because I soap in my basement, and carrying a mold full of liquid soap up stairs seems like a bad idea to me (and I am lazy).

But lots of people are baking their batches for hours, which is not how I have ever read it is done.

I use the heating pad, a box to over the soap and a blanket. Sometimes I have to do 2 cycles on high to get it to gel.

kc, you know how quickly misinformation can spread on the internet...I have a feeling that this is how this crazy "cooking" thing got started. Gently encouraging my soap to fully gel, has never caused problems for me. On occasion, when I've forgotten to turn the oven off right away, I've ended up with ugly brains, but with gentle heat, no brains, no cracks, no bubbling. I was really confused when I heard people talking about all their problems with CPOP, but when I heard what it was that they were doing, I wasn't surprised. Your method of using a heating pad is a good one too. No cooking, people!