looking for HP help!

[JBot]

Hi all,

This place is a gold mine of information! I've learned an enormous amount, especially from the detailed math/chemistry posts. So THANK YOU ALL! My question requires a rather detailed explanation, so I apologize for the length of the post.

I'm having an issue that I haven't seen discussed here before, although it's possible I haven't used the right search terms. I'm a new soaper, been at it about 6 months, and I do mostly HP (soap "cooked" in the oven before putting it in the mold). The issue I'm having is with rippling/shrinking/warping AFTER I trim/plane the bars. I like to trim/plane/bevel them to give them a smooth appearance, and it works beautifully, until a week or so later when the planed surfaces start looking ripply and wobbly.

What baffles me is that no matter what stage of curing it's in when I plane it - one week, two weeks, three weeks, you name it - it NEVER looks ripply or shrunken or warped BEFORE I do the planing. It's almost like it's original "skin" protects it from getting misshapen while drying/curing, and as soon as I breach that "skin," the drying becomes uneven. Interestingly, the vertical surfaces that are cut when I first slice the log into bars (the "faces" of the bars) are exempt from the warping, but all subsequent cuts end up drying unevenly. And this exemption ONLY works for the faces; doing the trimming/planing of any other surfaces of the bars at the same time the bars are cut results in the worst warping ever.

I've noticed that waiting at least two weeks to do the trimming seems to cause less warping than if I do it sooner, but I still get SOME warping, and waiting longer than 2.5 weeks causes other problems, such as the planer snagging on the corners and tearing them off.

I've experimented with a number of different variables: the recipe, the oil/butter used for superfatting, amount of water used (I typically use a 33% lye solution these days, so that's hardly an excess of water), the length of time it's cooked, the temperature it's cooked at, covering the molded soap with plastic wrap, putting the molded soap back into the oven, using sugar, using sodium lactate (terrific stuff!), and the position of the bars while drying and curing. I've also fiddled with the stage at which I add the superfatting oils or butters, such as cooking the soap a little bit longer after adding the SF instead adding the superfat immediately before molding, thinking this might help the moisture be more evenly distributed through the soap.

None of these approaches have really helped. I get the odd batch that warps either less or more, but I can't see any pattern. I do keep detailed notes, and I do (usually) manipulate only one variable at a time. What am I missing? I have observed that soaps made with more water tend to result in more warping, but I don't know if I can go beyond a 33% lye solution without the soap getting too dry to mold.

Another observation is that different surfaces (on a bar cut from a log mold) behave differently in terms of warping after they're planed, and these "behaviors" are consistent no matter how the bar is positioned while it's curing. The bottoms of the bars tend to curve up, like the rails of a rocking chair; the tops tend to sink and pucker in the middle, pulling the sides closer together, giving the bars a trapezoid appearance; and the faces look ripply like the surface of a lake. NONE of these things happen BEFORE they're planed! The sides seem to be affected the least, other than being pulled in by the puckering/sinking along the top.

I'm losing my mind trying to solve this. Any ideas? Does this happen with CP bars? I admit I haven't ever planed a CP bar, since they're smooth enough that it's never been necessary. I realize I could avoid all this frustration by doing CP, but I really love HP. I like having some control over which oils/butters comprise the superfat, using less fragrance oil to achieve the same scent, and best of all, I never have to worry about a fragrance oil causing a batch to seize, separate, rice, etc. I can easily use even the worst-behaved fragrances.

Again, so sorry about the length of this post, and I'd really appreciate any help or ideas that anybody can offer.

Thanks so much,

Jane

 

[pamielynn]

If it's what I'm picturing in my head, this warping, I'd say it is the liquid evaporating out of your bars. After planing, maybe the evaporation speeds up unevenly? Just a guess. Maybe you could try not planing them until they are more cured out - say 4-6 weeks?

Someone else may have a better idea

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I do HP at a 25% solution usually. I think the problem might lay elsewhere.

How long do you cook for?

 

[Seawolfe]

What happens if you don't plane till 6 or 8 weeks?
I would imagine that less water would result in less warping, but that's a very fine line in HP.

 

[dixiedragon]

Can you post photos?

Have you tried sodium lactate? I've never used it, but it is supposed to smooth out HP soap.

I have a theory that some of your soap is more cooked than other soap. So you have chunks that are shrinking at different rates.

Have you tried HPing in a crockpot?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Thinking about this more -

What is a typical recipe, including water amount?
What is the process, including cooking time, temps and so on?
Can we have a before planing, planed and warped?
Where/how are you curing?

 

[Dorymae]

I think I just read something about this shrinking. I believe it was said to put your bars into the freezer directly after you cut/plane them to prevent the shrinking. I have forgotten for how long they should stay there.

Anyway, the shrinking is caused by evaporation and I think the freezer may help put a new " skin" on the soap. It is worth trying - freeze your soap - experiment with the time.

 

[JBot]

Thank you for the replies! To answer your questions:

TEG: Typical recipe is 20 oz olive oil (29.6%), 20 oz coconut oil (29.6%), 20 oz palm oil (29.6%), 2.5 oz shea butter (3.7%), 2.5 oz castor oil (3.7%), and 2.5 oz meadowfoam seed oil (3.7%). Lye is 9.59 oz, water 19.20 oz, sodium lactate 2.03 oz (added to cooled lye water). (I've tried water amounts that range anywhere from 23.5% to 33%, and more water has typically resulted in more warping.)

Melt and mix oils, add lye water, stick blend to medium-thick trace, put it in the oven in stainless steel pot with lid, cook 45 minutes at 195F (have tried temps from 170-200F, haven't noticed much difference except that it seems a bit more fluid to pour at the higher temps), stir, cook another 15-20 minutes. I haven't observed any differences with shorter or longer cooking times. It needs to be cooked until it's fully gelled, of course, but I haven't gone past a total of 70-75 minutes for fear of it drying out too much.

The superfatting oil (usually meadowfoam, sometimes sweet almond oil or avocado oil) is added at the end of the cook, or when I stir at 45 minutes; I've tried adding all of my oils up front instead of holding one back for superfatting at the end, but it didn't help, and doing it that way defeats one of the primary reasons for HP.

Then I stir in the fragrance oil, do an in-the-pot swirl if I have more than one color, and pour/glop it into the mold. I place plastic wrap over it so I can smooth the surface with a wooden block, but I haven't noticed that it helps to leave the wrap on, so I usually remove it when I'm done smoothing.

I cut the logs into bars anywhere from 8 to 24 hours later, always after it's fully cooled. I have a drying/curing rack made from plastic-coated wire closet shelving. The rack is usually in the living room, in a spot that doesn't get direct sunlight. I turn the bars periodically while they're drying. I put them back on the rack after planing and leave them there until I need to make room for a new batch, which ends up being anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks (average is 4-5). Then I wrap them in paper and store them in cardboard shoeboxes.

I will post pictures shortly.

pamielynn, Seawolfe: I agree, I think it must be related to the liquid evaporating. But if I wait longer than 2.5-3 weeks to plane, the planer starts tearing off corners, presumably because the corners are driest.

dixiedragon: Yes, I use sodium lactate in almost every batch. It's possible that some of the soap is cooked more and some is cooked less, thus shrinking/drying at different rates, but then why wouldn't it warp after the initial cutting, instead of only after it's planed? I don't have a crockpot, mostly because that would really limit my batch size, but I think I'll have to get one and test it.

Dorymae: I've never heard about freezing to prevent warping! I will test that TODAY, although the lack of space in my freezer could prove challenging.

 

[JBot]

The first photo is a bar with no planing; it's exactly the same shape as it was when I cut it 5 days ago. The second is a bar that was planed less than 24 hours ago, although it's not beveled yet. You can see it already starting to ripple a bit along the top edge. The third, fourth and fifth pictures were planed quite a while ago. It takes several weeks for them to get this bad. The bar in the fifth/last picture is upside-down so you can see how the top sinks/puckers; you can also see another one in the background with quite ripply edges.

 

[JBot]

I should mention that I've also tried cutting the bars like a slab instead of a loaf, but that only transfers the warping/curving/misery from the edges (top and bottom) to the faces (front and back). I think that means that each cross-section's position, in the mold or relative to the exposed surface while in the mold, has a real impact on how it behaves while curing. Interesting, even if my problem is never solved.

Which brings me to another thought: it's not entirely accurate to say that none of the warping happens until after I do the planing. Below is a picture of "slab-cut" bars. They've been drying for 12 days, and I haven't done anything to them since cutting them. The log was deep enough that I could get two "slab-cut" bars out of one section. (Imagine them laid flat, one stacked on top of the other.) Interestingly, the one that was in the bottom half of the log is curved much more than the one that was in the top half of the log. It curved "up" toward the surface of the log, like a smile, just like the tops of the loaf-cut bars do after they're planed.

To help explain, in the picture I've positioned both "slab-cut" bars as they were in the mold before cutting.

 

[biarine]

I always making soap in HP than CP and I always used 38% water discount and sometimes my bar has crumbly edges too it's depend on the soap.

That's odd I never encountered like that I always used HP. Sometimes there's some problem like very hard to cut or crumbly on top or in the bottom when I cut them.

 

[JBot]

That's odd I never encountered like that I always used HP. Sometimes there's some problem like very hard to cut or crumbly on top or in the bottom when I cut them.

I've never had trouble cutting them, and very rarely experience crumbling. I've only seen crumbling when the soap got too cool/dry before I put it in the mold. The pictures show some roughness around the edges, but that's from my wire cutter, not crumbling.

 

[Cactuslily]

I'm a new soaper, but would using a dehumidifier help?

 

[Susie]

Not really. The problem is uneven evaporation of moisture(for whatever cause). Not the humidity in the room.

 

[IrishLass]

First of all- your HP swirls are gorgeous (I confess to having HP swirl-envy right now!).

My HP batches are rare (I'm a CP girl at heart), but when I do them, I make them in the oven like you do, too.

Here's my theory......I'm thinking that when you push/slide your bars over the planer blade (especially if the bars are still fairly soft), that the applied pressure slightly smooshes the bar's insides in such a way that it disrupts the soapy matrix to such an extent that the normal, even distribution of water and soap molecules get disrupted to the point where they are no longer as evenly distributed. (whew- that was a mouthful!). lol Anyway, such uneven distribution of the soap and water molecules then causes the evaporation of the water to be uneven.

Well, at least it's the theory that makes most sense to my mind.


IrishLass

 

[jules92207]

That is actually a really good thought Irishlass. You may be on to something there.

I'm following this even though I don't have any insight to add, just really curious about this.

 

[JBot]

First of all- your HP swirls are gorgeous (I confess to having HP swirl-envy right now!).

My HP batches are rare (I'm a CP girl at heart), but when I do them, I make them in the oven like you do, too.

Here's my theory......I'm thinking that when you push/slide your bars over the planer blade (especially if the bars are still fairly soft), that the applied pressure slightly smooshes the bar's insides in such a way that it disrupts the soapy matrix to such an extent that the normal, even distribution of water and soap molecules get disrupted to the point where they are no longer as evenly distributed. (whew- that was a mouthful!). lol Anyway, such uneven distribution of the soap and water molecules then causes the evaporation of the water to be uneven.

Well, at least it's the theory that makes most sense to my mind.


IrishLass

I see what you mean! It's as good a theory as anything else I've heard or come up with. Now I have to figure out how to test that and whether it can be corrected if it is the problem. Not sure whether it's possible to plane them with more even pressure, or if that would even matter; maybe there's a way to restore the matrix? Heat, maybe? I'll try nuking one; doesn't microwaving excite the molecules from the inside out?

Do you cover the pot with the lid when you put it in the oven? I've always used the lid, but I noticed that in one of the soapqueen HPOP tutorials, Anne-Marie put it in the oven WITHOUT a lid. What temp do you cook at, and for how long? And for TEG: when you make your soap in the crockpot, do you know what temp it reaches? The "low" and "high" settings that I've seen aren't especially informative.

Thanks for the compliment on the swirls! It's actually pretty easy. I separate the batter into different pots and color it BEFORE it goes in the oven. After I've added the superfatting oils/butters and the FO, I put all the colors back into one pot together, kind of stacked on top of each other or side-by-side. Then I "fold" the batter around a bit, which layers the colors, sort of. I dump it all into the mold, then do a hanger swirl. This all has to be done REALLY FAST, especially with the lye:water ratio I typically use, or it starts to harden and dry.

Then I bang the mold on the counter, smooth it out, etc. The hanger drives me nuts, since I can't SEE what the swirls look like until I cut it. I've ordered an "uber mold" from Soap Hutch that should allow me to swirl slab-style with a chopstick. I have high hopes for this mold helping me improve my results! I've been waiting MANY WEEKS for it to be built and shipped, telling myself that waiting builds character. Anybody have any feedback on the Soap Hutch molds? Other than what I'll find when I search the forum, that is ;-)

I've wondered if the rate of the soap cooling in the mold might have an impact on the warping issue. The molds I've been using are wooden log molds with a silicone liner, which seems to retain quite a bit of heat. I think I've heard that the HDPE molds conduct heat better and result in faster cooling. We shall see!