valor
Well-Known Member
Is it possible to re-batch soap and correct a mistake in the re-batching process? Like adding more oil or lye?
Is it possible?
- Thread starter valor
- Start date
Help Support Soapmaking Forum:
Yes,it is.
You must full of carefully to make it.
Good luck my friend. Please, visit my blog below and make some comments . Thank you very much.
http://soaphome.blogspot.com/
You must full of carefully to make it.
Good luck my friend. Please, visit my blog below and make some comments . Thank you very much.
http://soaphome.blogspot.com/
DO NOT add more lye in your rebatch - you can add a little (& I do mean a little) oil for superfatting, you can also add scent to a rebatch or herbs & botanicals.
valor
Well-Known Member
how would one go about calculating the correction? I made a lye heavy batch by 8 tenths of an ounce. Therefore, I need to add enough oil not only to correct it, but to superfat the standard 5%. Is there a calculator that I would use, or a formula or something?
When you rebatch then the lye will neutralize - if you want to add more oils then take the weight of your original batch and at this point I would recommend not going over 1%. Your rebatched soap is not going to be smooth and liquid like the original but it can still look good with a little patience. Maybe someone else will have better information on how much oil to add because I tend to stay conservative.....
valor
Well-Known Member
Lindy said:
So, let me see if I understand, When I melt it down to rebatch it, the lye will neutralize? I don't have to worry about it being caustic anymore? I could just melt it down and add like 1% of my total ORIGINAL oils and it would be okay to use on skin?
I'm really new to this and I feel silly asking all of these questions, but I am so grateful that you guys are here and willing to help. Thank you so much!
You can most defininitely cure a lye heavy batch by rebatching, but rebatching alone will not neutralize the lye if it is truly in excess of your oil amount- you need to add more oil as you are melting your soap down.
This is the way I do it (I leanrned it from a soaper named Bunny on another forum):
Start out by melting down your soap on low heat either in a covered crock or on the stove in a covered pot. Add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of oil to your melted-down soap and do a zap test *after it is has been completely stirred and incorporated into it and allowed to cook for about 5 or 10 minutes.
*To do a zap test, stick a knife into your hot soap batter, pull it out, cool the soap on it off so that it not too hot anymore, and then stick your tongue to it. If it 'zaps' or stings your tongue, it's still lye heavy. Add a little more oil (no more than a teaspoon this time) and and repeat the process above. Keep doing this until your soap does not zap anymore. When you've reached that point, your soap is good to mold, or you can add a tiny bit more oil to superfat.
HTH!
IrishLass
PS You can add a little more water to your melted soap if you find your soap has dried out too much from being re-heated. Don't add too much, though, or your bars will warp during cure.
PPS Just wanted to add that while it's perfectly good to add more oil to a lye heavy soap while rebatching, it is not advisable to add more lye to an oil heavy soap while rebatching.
This is the way I do it (I leanrned it from a soaper named Bunny on another forum):
Start out by melting down your soap on low heat either in a covered crock or on the stove in a covered pot. Add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of oil to your melted-down soap and do a zap test *after it is has been completely stirred and incorporated into it and allowed to cook for about 5 or 10 minutes.
*To do a zap test, stick a knife into your hot soap batter, pull it out, cool the soap on it off so that it not too hot anymore, and then stick your tongue to it. If it 'zaps' or stings your tongue, it's still lye heavy. Add a little more oil (no more than a teaspoon this time) and and repeat the process above. Keep doing this until your soap does not zap anymore. When you've reached that point, your soap is good to mold, or you can add a tiny bit more oil to superfat.
HTH!
IrishLass
PS You can add a little more water to your melted soap if you find your soap has dried out too much from being re-heated. Don't add too much, though, or your bars will warp during cure.
PPS Just wanted to add that while it's perfectly good to add more oil to a lye heavy soap while rebatching, it is not advisable to add more lye to an oil heavy soap while rebatching.
valor
Well-Known Member
IrishLass said:You can most defininitely cure a lye heavy batch by rebatching, but rebatching alone will not neutralize the lye if it is truly in excess of your oil amount- you need to add more oil as you are melting your soap down.
This is the way I do it (I leanrned it from a soaper named Bunny on another forum):
Start out by melting down your soap on low heat either in a covered crock or on the stove in a covered pot. Add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of oil to your melted-down soap and do a zap test *after it is has been completely stirred and incorporated into it and allowed to cook for about 5 or 10 minutes.
*To do a zap test, stick a knife into your hot soap batter, pull it out, cool the soap on it off so that it not too hot anymore, and then stick your tongue to it. If it 'zaps' or stings your tongue, it's still lye heavy. Add a little more oil (no more than a teaspoon this time) and and repeat the process above. Keep doing this until your soap does not zap anymore. When you've reached that point, your soap is good to mold, or you can add a tiny bit more oil to superfat.
HTH!
IrishLass
PS You can add a little more water to your melted soap if you find your soap has dried out too much from being re-heated. Don't add too much, though, or your bars will warp during cure.
PPS Just wanted to add that while it's perfectly good to add more oil to a lye heavy soap while rebatching, it is not advisable to add more lye to an oil heavy soap while rebatching.
Wow! Awesome! Thank you so much. I've been searching high and low for a formula.
Thank you!
Lindy said:
:shock:
could you explain why this is? I added more lye to my soap a while back and have been using it... should I throw it out now? D:
Was my first batch, from a book who's recipes all contained the same total lbs oil and oz lye, with different oils for each recipe (like, their lard recipe and olive oil recipe with the same lye and oil weights) - I looked it up in a lye calculator after the fact and realized there should have been more lye there, so I rebatched it with more lye?. Bad book, bad.
edit - this is the book, The Complete Soapmaker:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806948698/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
apparently it also says to add water to lye and not lye to water, and all the recipes have 4x the standard water amount. Gee that was a great first book for me to pick! lol.
Last edited by a moderator:
Norai said:
Did you check for 'zap'? If there was no zap, it should be fine.
Not to say that it can't be done if one is very careful and knows what they are doing or exactly how much they need to add back in, but I personally don't advise adding more lye to a rebatch because it's just more of a tricky process. If you did it and got no zap in your finished bars, then all I have to say is 'You go girl!"
If it had been me, I would have just let it go and enjoyed my extra-superfatted bars.IrishLass
IrishLass said:Did you check for 'zap'? If there was no zap, it should be fine.
Not to say that it can't be done if one is very careful and knows what they are doing or exactly how much they need to add back in, but I personally don't advise adding more lye to a rebatch because it's just more of a tricky process. If you did it and got no zap in your finished bars, then all I have to say is 'You go girl!"
IrishLass
Well, I just looked at the amount of lye in the recipe, then plugged the oils used into a calculator and compared the lye amounts ... I went with the calculator said, since the book had the same amount of lye for all the recipes (added the difference). dissolved it in water and stuck it in the crockpot with the shredded soap for a few hours to be on the safe side.
Would have thrown it out, but it was 50-something ounces of extra virgin olive oil. >.<
I did try the zap test, but I'm still not sure exactly what the zap feels like -- so I guess it passed the zap test, lol. I'm guessing I'd know it if I felt it..
ChrissyB
Well-Known Member
Yep you would definitely know it if you felt it.
Irish Lass - thanks for that info - whenever I've had "zappy" soap I did a rebatch in the oven and just cooked it until the "zap" went away. I really like your method and will keep it in mind. However I almost always superfat @ 5% - 8% so the only time it's been zappy is when it didn't gel properly. I think....
Norai I have that book as well and I always ran my recipes out of there through a Soap Calculator to double check my lye amounts. Like irish Lass said it is such a tricky process to add lye back into a batch IMO opinion that it just isn't worth it for me. Plus I LOVE my superfatted soaps....
Norai I have that book as well and I always ran my recipes out of there through a Soap Calculator to double check my lye amounts. Like irish Lass said it is such a tricky process to add lye back into a batch IMO opinion that it just isn't worth it for me. Plus I LOVE my superfatted soaps....
Lindy said:
Lindy- how long do you let your ungelled soaps sit before you test for zap? I ask because unlike my gelled soaps, I've found my ungelled soaps to take a little longer to reach an un-zappy state- sometimes even up to a week after unmolding. As I let them sit longer on my curing rack, though, full saponification finally catches up with them and the zap goes completely away.
Gel is nice in that it just speeds the saponification process up a ways, but properly made ungelled soaps will reach that same un-zappy state, too, when left to sit longer and do its thing.
Because your zap goes away when you cook your ungelled soap without having added any more oils to it, I'm 100% sure your ungelled soap was properly made and not lye-heavy at all- it just needs to sit a spell more on your curing racks to let full saponification catch up with it.
IrishLass
If they are still zapping after 3 days I rebatch unless I'm too busy to get right on it. So - if I left it alone for a week it would play nice? Good to know....
Thank you Irish Lass....
Cheers
Lindy
Thank you Irish Lass....
Cheers
Lindy
Oh it was still superfatted, when I added more lye I calculated it back to 5% - I have no idea what it was before that, but it was really oily feeling to me. Though I did read on another site that high olive oil soap tends to feel oily anyway, so I was probably over-reacting!
