My paste turns out solid white thick mess :((

[attime]

Hello!

So I have been making liquid soap for more than 3+ months. Rarely have problems until I bought a new crockpot. This is my recipe;

Olive oil 400 ml
Coconut oil 350 ml
Castor oil 200 ml
Shea butter 50 g
Koh 220 g

Normal process but i kept stirring and stirring. Left it cooking for more than 5-6 hours and on Low temp all night. Checked in the morning and it was like the picture below .. This is the 2nd time of exact same
problems. I tried to dilute it and mix orange oil and as u can see ..

I normally do 2 pots together and my oil pot always turns out nice gel-like paste with exact same recipe and time spent. Help

 

[Susie]

How much batch water did you use?
At what temperature is the diluted soap when you add the orange oil?
Also-how much orange oil, and what brand was it?
Why are you still cooking soap?

ETA:
Ran the recipe on Soapee.com. I show 6% superfat. That, coupled with the shea butter, is going to yield cloudy soap every time, especially soap that separates into oils floating on top. I use no more than 3% superfat to help with that.

Another issue entirely is the complaint of "solid white thick mess". I use a 3:1 water/KOH ratio to yield a more malleable, and therefore easier to dilute, paste.

My suggestions are these:
1. Ditch the shea butter if you want clear soap.
2. Use no higher than 3% superfat.
3. Use a 3:1 water ratio.
4. Go to this thread: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=46114, then go to post #8, and follow IrishLass' excellent tutorial for making awesome soap.

 

[SunRiseArts]

Is it possible you may have over cooked it? I never made liquid soap, but looks overcooked to me.

 

[Susie]

Is it possible you may have over cooked it? I never made liquid soap, but looks overcooked to me.

That is actually not an abnormal appearance for good liquid soap. It just has some recipe issues.

However, the fact that it was cooked 5-6 hours is a red flag telling me that they did not like the appearance, and were trying to "fix" it by cooking it.

 

[attime]

Thank you for you reply! I'll try to adjust the Koh amount. But my problem is .. i use exact same recipe side by side cooking 2 crockpots and one crock pot always turned out bad. The other one always ends up in almost clear gel-like paste which dilutes really nicely.

So I cannot figure out so I only use 1 crock pot now and never have problem.

To answer --: I mix the oil when the soap is cool down to room temperature.
-- I ordered from online source. It only says organic orange soap
-- I'm cooking for giving away to my friends and family like once or twice a month

Sorry to get you confused .. the solid thick mess is actually me complaining about the paste didn't clear up and turns out really really hard in white color almost like a solid soap.

Normal pot takes around 3-4 hours to cook the soap properly.

So i'm so confused now. If the recipe has problem then why the other pot doesn't turn out the same @_@

Thank you!

 

[Susie]

I have no idea. It is obviously a pot problem, but I have no idea how the first recipe that has so much excess oil comes out clear. If you are not using a lye calculator to figure your recipes, you need to, but I really have no idea how you don't get floating oils on both soaps. If your bad crock pot has a lower setting, try that. Or turn it off for half the time the other one is running to see if it is getting too hot.

There is no need to cook liquid soap. You can simply get it stickblended to emulsification, then put a lid on it and walk away. It will get itself to gel. Then you dilute. This would be my best solution to the "odd pot" issue.

Do you use a lye calculator for your recipes?