andreabadgley
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,
I had my first successful rebatch yesterday. Woohoo!!! I had a soap that was giving me problems, and I tried a rebatch with the boil in bag method. The problem was that I actually *boiled* the water instead of keeping it just under a boil, and my bags melted. What a pain! If you do the boil in bag method, make sure you don't get the water too hot! Anyway, so I lost the batch into the pot of boiling water. Not pretty.
Well, I tried the recipe again because it's one I really like. And again it didn't work. It's a grapefruit and ginger soap inspired by the Laughing Buddha. It has worked in the past, but I decided to double the amount of grapefruit EO because the scent was too light. After bringing the soap to trace, I added the scent, then poured. Next day, the soap had a layer of liquid on top and a solid layer of white on the bottom. I'm guessing now (after reading a bunch of posts here on the forum) that the EO thinned the soap and I should have brought it back up to trace again. Rookie mistake.
So I decided to try to rebatch (again), but this time I used the crock pot. I grated the soap, smooshed it down into the CP, added 1.5 ounces of Olive Oil (the amount of liquid I sucked off of the top of the soap), and set the CP on low for three hours. I stirred about every 15 minutes because I was paranoid about it burning, and it seemed to be taking forever to melt. So, of course, I made my way back to the forum (after about 2 hours of watching it S L O W L Y melt) and found that I should have had it on high and I should have added water. SOOO I set the CP on high after about 2.5 hours on low, added 1 Tbs water for each pound of soap, and stirred about every 10 minutes (is all this stirring necessary to keep it from burning?).
And what do you know - it worked! I am SO excited that it worked!!! I threw in a little more EO just for the heck of it, glopped it all into the mold, smooshed it down, and the next day it was hard. YAY!!! I love the way it feels - more gel-like than the cold process - and it smells wonderful. I actually like the kind of gloppy look, too.
So thank you all for so many helpful posts. I've taken the next step in my soap making! Now I'm ready to attempt hot process.
I had my first successful rebatch yesterday. Woohoo!!! I had a soap that was giving me problems, and I tried a rebatch with the boil in bag method. The problem was that I actually *boiled* the water instead of keeping it just under a boil, and my bags melted. What a pain! If you do the boil in bag method, make sure you don't get the water too hot! Anyway, so I lost the batch into the pot of boiling water. Not pretty.
Well, I tried the recipe again because it's one I really like. And again it didn't work. It's a grapefruit and ginger soap inspired by the Laughing Buddha. It has worked in the past, but I decided to double the amount of grapefruit EO because the scent was too light. After bringing the soap to trace, I added the scent, then poured. Next day, the soap had a layer of liquid on top and a solid layer of white on the bottom. I'm guessing now (after reading a bunch of posts here on the forum) that the EO thinned the soap and I should have brought it back up to trace again. Rookie mistake.
So I decided to try to rebatch (again), but this time I used the crock pot. I grated the soap, smooshed it down into the CP, added 1.5 ounces of Olive Oil (the amount of liquid I sucked off of the top of the soap), and set the CP on low for three hours. I stirred about every 15 minutes because I was paranoid about it burning, and it seemed to be taking forever to melt. So, of course, I made my way back to the forum (after about 2 hours of watching it S L O W L Y melt) and found that I should have had it on high and I should have added water. SOOO I set the CP on high after about 2.5 hours on low, added 1 Tbs water for each pound of soap, and stirred about every 10 minutes (is all this stirring necessary to keep it from burning?).
And what do you know - it worked! I am SO excited that it worked!!! I threw in a little more EO just for the heck of it, glopped it all into the mold, smooshed it down, and the next day it was hard. YAY!!! I love the way it feels - more gel-like than the cold process - and it smells wonderful. I actually like the kind of gloppy look, too.
So thank you all for so many helpful posts. I've taken the next step in my soap making! Now I'm ready to attempt hot process.
