In Praise of Water Discounting

[Maythorn]

I hate too much water. Sounds like you didn't have any fun at all with those batches. I hope future ones go better!

 

[IrishLass]

I can vouch that Mason jars are not good! I had seen some people use them, so I thought they were safe and I had a bunch, but I had some in my sink in an ice bath, and the bottom of the jar completely broke off! Luckily it was in my sink and I had rubber gloves on so no issues. Scary though!

Same kind of thing happened to me with a canning jar just last week. The bottom of the jar just broke right off as I was heating it on a rack in a hot water bath. The water wasn't even boiling- it was just barely at a simmer.

IrishLass

 

[Fragola]

I can vouch that Mason jars are not good! I had seen some people use them, so I thought they were safe and I had a bunch, but I had some in my sink in an ice bath, and the bottom of the jar completely broke off!

If you do that to them, they certainly aren't safe. With all glass, I always heat or cool 1 degree at a time. Haste makes waste.

And I am saying this unrelated to soapmaking.

 

[ericllucas]

If you do that to them, they certainly aren't safe.

I also can food with mason jars. I am keenly aware that tempered glass (Mason, Ball, Pyrex) does not tolerate a great difference in temperature well. It is easily possible to introduce a temperature difference in Mason or Ball jars while canning, causing the hot contents to spill, with the attendant risk of serious, serious burns, and yet no one says don't use Mason or Ball jars in canning.

What I had been doing to mix lye and water is to put the distilled water into the mason jar and then immerse the mason jar up to the neck in a bucket of water (blue one in the previous picture). Then, I mixed the lye with the water inside the mason jar. As the water in the mason jar heats up, the water in the bucket acts as a heat sink and moderates the temperature inside the mason jar. This keeps the mason jar from experiencing a wide difference in temperatures between the inside and outside of the glass. The area of risk in the jar is the part that sits just above the water level in the bucket.

I also believed that the bucket of water / water jacket around the jar will minimize the impact of breakage or spillage if it DOES occur, so I thought that would be an additional safety consideration.

I would never use ice in the bucket/water jacket as ice cannot absorb heat and melt as fast as needed, meaning I'd have a greater temp difference between the inside and outside of the jar. I substitute patience for ice, in this case.

I will readily agree that all bets are off when using glass that has been scratched or nicked. The unequal stress around the scratch makes the impact of a temperature difference more pronounced. That's inviting a fracture. To cut glass in general, you make a slight scratch where you want the glass to break. Having that same scratch in a mason jar and thinking that jar won't break is, well, silly.

The video previously offered shows what can happen when the temperature difference is very great. The trick to using tempered glass in any application - canning, lye water mixing, baking, moonshine sipping, sweet tea drinking - is to keep the temperature differences as low as possible.

Having said that, I will be getting one of those #5 plastic Rubbermaid pitchers and using the bucket/water jacket method in future. The Rubbermaid pitcher holds more and does not fail along scratch lines.

 

[Stinkydancer]

please don't mix the lye and water in glass - not even mason jars! we have some discussions about it on the forum~

It took a bit but I found your comment in, um, 2007 I think, about not using glass. Okay, thanks for the tip; it makes sense. I'll go use a Rubbermaid pitcher from Walmart in future (#5 plastic).

I just did a search and found scores of soap-makers who recommend using mason jars. If there is a clear and present danger to using glass, perhaps we might want to create a SAFETY thread on this forum to make such information more readily accessible.

I did see a portion of the forum where people posted their horror stories. One lady posted a picture of the lye-burn on her hand. THAT's compelling.

Wow- wonder how she did that. I have never had a lye burn ever even after soaping on wine.

Nice soap! Good luck on your future batches.

 

[ericllucas]

Wow- wonder how she did that. I have never had a lye burn ever even after soaping on wine.

There but for the grace of God goes I...

 

[Stinkydancer]

LOL- just respect the lye- you'll be AOK!