Liquid soap is now cooking for 24 hours. Why?

[ausra]

Hi, I'm new here! As well as with soap making. Just two days ago I made my first cold process batch, yesterday another one (which turned out to be great) and I gave a shot to some liquid loving. As soon as I finished with my first cold process batch, I decided to make some slow cooker soap. Aaand my stick blender burned down so I decided to use a different type of blender which was a huge mistake since my soap fluffed and I had to get rid of it. Though that's not an issue now.
I bought a new stick blender and started with another liquid batch. At first everything was brilliant - I reached very thick paste in about an hour, maybe even less. But then - some trouble. I reached the trace yesterday at about 10 P.M. Kept blending till 4 A.M. when I had to gave up and go to bed so I just left it to cook on low overnight. It is going there, to that transparency stage but EXTREMELY slowly. My soap is dark brown at the moment, very thick and it seems it will soon start getting to that transparency stage. Why do you think it's happened? I followed this recipe (replaced two ounces with coconut oil so it's 45 of olive oil and 2 of coconut) down bellow. Including all the steps.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Lye-Free-Liquid-Castile-Soap-from-your-Kitc/
Thanks.

 

[FGOriold]

A liquid soap that high in olive oil will not get to the taffy (very, very thick where the stick blender will not work). If you replace your oils with other oils, you also need to recalculate your water and KOH amounts. It should not take more than an hour for an olive oil liquid soap to fully trace and be ready for the cook. I would try again with a recipe higher in coconut oil so you can easily see the stages that the paste will go through.

 

[ausra]

Well, I'm not talking about the trace. Trace was there fairly quickly yet it takes AGES to get to transparency while every single recipe I could find was saying it will only take 3-4 hours. It's cooking for 25 hours now and it does seem a little more transparent now but not the full transparent thing yet and paste test still gets my water cloudy so I just don't get why it takes so long.

 

[Feather]

I don't understand why you would keep blending from 10 PM to 4 AM? Once it reaches trace aren't you just supposed to let it cook--without blending? To me, it seems you might have blended air into it with all that blending, even with an immersion blender.

 

[ausra]

Oh, I didn't explain that bit properly. I wasn't blending all the time. After reaching the trace, I just kept coming back every now and then to blend it a bit to keep it moving. At least instructions I followed told to do so...

 

[Feather]

I read some posters saying they got to trace, heated it in the slow cooker for 1 or 2 hours, turned it off and went to bed. It will still finish saponifying and go to gel. When you have time the next day, test it and add water. It may not be clear at first, but it will clear in a short time to two weeks.

 

[whitetiger_0603]

It has to cook almost 200 degrees to get that transparent look. And you have to keep "sitrring" or at least turn the soap over, for the first few hours after trace. I let mine cook overnight in the crock on the warm setting. But the initial cooking should be on low or high. And it's supposed to fluff, kinda like a souffle. You just turn the team down and keep stirring.