Lye Heavy? !

[MzMolly65]

Don't be discouraged!

Thanks but no need to worry. There is no such thing as discouraged in my world .. I'm a bit of a mad scientist at heart and everything is a learning opportunity.

 

[MzMolly65]

What was the original SF%?

5%

Can anyone help me figure out why this batch is acting silly. I think I might have figured it out for myself but want to see what experienced soapers say.

I used this recipe http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-b...-soap/baby-soap-buttermilk-bastille-baby-bar/

but since it's for a 2lb mold and I only have a 1lb I adjusted it by calculating the percentages of each ingredient based on total weight of all .. then put the percentages into this soap calc http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp but using a total of 500 grams of oil.

.. here are my amounts

OO 420g
CO 80g
Buttermilk 190g
Carrot baby food (I used cooked mushed carrots) 39G
Lye 67g

What I didn't know how to do was calculate for the carrots (I didn't treat them as part of the water and I think I was supposed to do that) so I added the carrot weight to the total liquid. I think that's where the mistake started.

THEN .. to make matters worse I got frisky with the ingredients and added more carrots when the colour wasn't as orange as I wanted it. *hangs head in shame* .. I thought a little extra liquid wouldn't hurt .. Doah!! .. an extra 60 grams. So if I was supposed to count carrots as water I'm actually over on water by a total of 99 grams.

I hope you can all understand what I did. I think that's what caused this entire mess and if that's the case what can I do to fix this? ... again, :shifty:

 

[Lin]

Yes, I would say the carrots should have been counted as liquid. At least the amount of the carrots that IS liquid needs to be considered as such.

For example, if you were using baby food you could have used the nutrition label to determine the amount of pure liquid and considered that as part of your total of liquid, and the rest of whats in pureed carrots would be considered a solid additive. But buy not considering them into your liquid at all, and then adding even more, yea you went WAY over.

I recently posted a thread titled something like max amount of liquid, check out DeeAnna's response there. It discusses what I mentioned about using the nutrition label. Its what I was thinking but wanted to hear back to assure me that my thinking was right that when using water swaps that aren't pure liquid, the TOTAL weight can be higher than total water, but thats if you take the time to determine how much liquid is in the item and factor that into total water amount and consider the other ingredients as solid additives.

 

[grayceworks]

but since it's for a 2lb mold and I only have a 1lb I adjusted it by calculating the percentages of each ingredient based on total weight of all .. then put the percentages into this soap calc but using a total of 500 grams of oil.

Easier way I discovered for enlarging/reducing recipes on soapcalc....

Put in the original recipe amounts exactly as they are stated for the original size recipe.

Click Calculate. This will calculate your percentages for each individual oil automatically.

THEN, just choose the little selector dot over to the percents column instead of the weight column. You can then go up to where it asks you the total weight you want the batch to be (and choose pounds, ounces or grams), and enter the new total batch weight, and click calculate.

It will calculate all new numbers for the new weight based on the percents that you now have selected.

Saves a lot of fiddling with the calculator.

 

[MzMolly65]

Since my water calc and the carrots were probably the cause .. does that mean this is not a lye heavy batch but that I probably put it to bed on false trace? It wasn't tracing and someone suggested just get it to emulsion and mold it .. so I did. Is that why there was all that liquid?

.. and if that's the case do I still need to rebatch it with oils or will it be fine after HP? (I guess a zap test will tell me that answer but asking anyway .. )

 

[Obsidian]

No way to tell if its ok until you zap test it. Have you cut it yet?

 

[cmzaha]

If you had used all of the oozy liquid in your rebatch, then no additional ingredients would have been required except perhaps a smidge of extra water. The problem is that your soap overheated and separated so the fluid you threw out contained a lot of oil and probably some lye solution. There is no way to know its composition or that of the rebatched soap after the fact. However, it's likely that in this instance your soap will be lye heavy because of the missing oil that was discarded.

As Judy mentioned you are still going to have to add in more oils for your rebatch, worst that will happen at this point is the fact you will have a high superfat. Even with saving all the liquid I would add in a little extra oil, since it will not alway pour into the crockpot. If I get a seperated batch in the mold I just dump out of the mold into the crockpot and still add in a bit of oil or milk. Also adding in extra liquid can create other scenarios, best saved for a new thread

 

[MzMolly65]

No way to tell if its ok until you zap test it. Have you cut it yet?

Not yet, it's still a bit sticky in the mold so I'm thinking maybe later today.

 

[judymoody]

It's the carrot puree - seriously. That stuff heats up soap like nobody's business. I attempted to make a bastille soap for a baby and added pureed carrot baby food to half so I could do a swirl. The white part of the soap was fine. The orange was a gooey oozing mess, rivers of orange dripping everywhere. I had put the soap in a preheated 170 degree oven and then turned it off. That mess went to rebatch. Next attempt I put it in our unheated garage after pouring into the mold - it was winter and ambient temperature was probably around 50. Much better result.

I don't think the extra carrot puree was the culprit as far as water amount is concerned. However, as a heating element, I'm sure it contributed. And since you threw out the 3/4 cup of oozy liquid (which in a 1 lb batch is quite a lot), I seriously doubt your rebatch is going to be safe as is. If it still zaps, my recommendation would be to start over. It's only a pound of oils after all.

 

[MzMolly65]

I seriously doubt your rebatch is going to be safe as is. If it still zaps, my recommendation would be to start over. It's only a pound of oils after all.

Would it be safe to chop it up and incorporate any of it into a different batch or should it go straight into the bin?

ETA: Judy .. I'm confused about this one because this batch never got hot at all. Usually when I'm mixing I can feel the heat through the mixing container. This batch was cold, cold, cold and even then I wondered about it. I used frozen buttermilk cubes and had the mixing container in an ice bath as well. I added the carrot in after the lye had all dissolved. Even after I put it in the mold there was no heat. Usually I can hold my hand over the block and feel heat or there's heat condensation on the lid of my mold .. this time, nothing for either. It's very odd and I'd love to know what really happened inside all that goo.

 

[judymoody]

Well, if it was that cold, perhaps you got false trace? However, as the top of your soap looks like it gelled, I still suspect that it heated up at some point in the process. Did you insulate after pour?

I've had soap that I mixed cool and put in the frig go into complete gel so anything is possible. Perhaps once the chemical reaction got underway it took off? Without time lapse photography, it's difficult to say.

p.s. I checked out the original recipe and she did not say to count the carrots as part of your liquid weight. So I don't think you erred there.

I also think that further rebatching would be an exercise in futility as you'd have a lot of guesswork involved in calculating what was lost when you threw out the oozy liquid. It might make a good utility soap. Lye heavy soap is great for cleaning stove grates (use gloves!)

 

[MzMolly65]

Did you insulate after pour?

I did .. I use 1" hard styrofoam as a mold framework and just line it with a silicone liner. I have another piece of styrofoam for a lid so it's well insulated.

 

[Lin]

Pouring at emulsion itself is fine, you don't have to always wait for trace. In fact many specific design techniques require coloring and pouring at emulsion and not trace. But you got separation after pouring, which can be more likely without waiting for trace. But sounds like the cause here was the carrots. Too much liquid can also cause separation, or so I've been told when I was looking into the max amount of liquid possible to use without negative effects.

 

[MzMolly65]

I posted pics of it out of the mold in my thread http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=388183&postcount=23

and a couple more final pics http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=388184&postcount=24

It's not zapping but I'm really skeptical about this bar (and my ability to know what a real zap is) after the initial "not so zappy" zap.