No trace
- Thread starter Deepika
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Hi Deepika, welcome to the forum. If you post your recipe and your process we would be happy to help trouble shoot. My first question though is are you using a stick blender to mix it?
Yes, please post the recipe -- you will get better advice. A recipe high in olive and sweet almond oils can come to trace very slowly. Especially if you are not using a stick blender, it could indeed take hours.
You still have 70% Liquid Oils so it would take time to trace. But, if you are using a stick blender it shouldn't take that long. Post your exact recipe including water/lye amounts. Maybe there's something there. Especially if you used full water too.
So you used this recipe and have mixed with SB for about 2 hours and didn't get trace. If I read this correct, then my thought is how good is your lye? Could you share where you bought it? Is it pure lye in the form of flakes or granules?
Your recipe is actually considered a fast tracer with that much pomace OO.
Your recipe is actually considered a fast tracer with that much pomace OO.
Can you verify for us that it is NaOH and not KoH? Do they tell you the purity of it? Or the age? Lye that is not sealed well can absorb water and become ineffective.
Does your stickblender plug into an outlet and look something vaguely like this?
Can you post a picture of your blender? Or one like it?
May be you can just walk us through the whole process? Right from measuring and melting. I'm assuming you are in Delhi and at this time of the year you wouldn't probably need to melt anything. Did you try to soap at room temperature then? What kind of water you used? Is your blender the immersion kind? Is this your first soap batch? Yeah, just tell us the whole thing, bits and pieces are not going to help much. Also, what happened to the soap since your first post?
What sort of state is it in? Solid, liquid? Is it split out between oils and lye solution, or still mixed together?
Again, can you give us a real blow-by-blow walkthrough of what you did in as much detail as possible (and include the blender image)?
Again, can you give us a real blow-by-blow walkthrough of what you did in as much detail as possible (and include the blender image)?
It's beginning to set but it's still soft. Since I made it for the first time I don't know which stage is this. If you can make out there's a white bubbly layer on top like oil particles.
My recepie was
60%olive oil pomace
30% coconut oil
10%almond oil
71 gm lye
190 gm water
Mixed lye to water. Then mixed all oils & heated them to 100F.mixed the lye solution to oils at same temperature. Stirred with the blender but it did not trace though it became a little thick.
This is the blender I used
As I live in delhi & is very hot, all my oils were in liquid form. Could that be the cause of no trace?
My recepie was
60%olive oil pomace
30% coconut oil
10%almond oil
71 gm lye
190 gm water
Mixed lye to water. Then mixed all oils & heated them to 100F.mixed the lye solution to oils at same temperature. Stirred with the blender but it did not trace though it became a little thick.
This is the blender I used
As I live in delhi & is very hot, all my oils were in liquid form. Could that be the cause of no trace?
"...I don't feel there is problem with Lye as the water became very hot when I dissolved it & there were fumes also. ..."
Unfortunately, you cannot know there are problems with the lye. You will see this with KOH as well as with NaOH, even NaOH that has a purity that is too low to make good soap.
From the picture you shared, you are using is what I would call a "hand mixer". It is different than the "stick blender" most of us use -- see the picture below for an example. A stick blender (SB for short) will mix your soap ingredients together much more forcefully than a hand mixer. You are trying to make a recipe with a high percentage of oleic acid while using lower intensity mixer and possibly a lye that is not working right. Your oils should always be liquid to make soap, so the weather in New Delhi is not the issue.
Unfortunately, you cannot know there are problems with the lye. You will see this with KOH as well as with NaOH, even NaOH that has a purity that is too low to make good soap.
From the picture you shared, you are using is what I would call a "hand mixer". It is different than the "stick blender" most of us use -- see the picture below for an example. A stick blender (SB for short) will mix your soap ingredients together much more forcefully than a hand mixer. You are trying to make a recipe with a high percentage of oleic acid while using lower intensity mixer and possibly a lye that is not working right. Your oils should always be liquid to make soap, so the weather in New Delhi is not the issue.
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I've made soap before with a hand blender, took longer but it still reached trace. Have you tried mixing it again?
dixiedragon
Well-Known Member
In the picture it looks like it has separated. Do you have a mess of clear oily stuff with some granular whitish bits?
Deepika, the hand mixer is not really good for making soap. you need something that does what the Preethi / Sumeeth mixers do but should be immerrsible in the oil and lye mix instead of the liquids going in the jar. If that is not available, you should just be ready for long mixing times. Soaping at higher than room temperatures will likely help. I would be really careful mixing with the hand mixer as, number 1, there is a bigger chance of everything splashing around which is dangerous, this is the reason why I am not suggesting that you put it in the mixie jar and give it a go. Number 2. most hand mixers will die out before getting that thing to trace. Your best bet would be hand mixing and lots of elbow grease.
I don't know if you could salvage this batch. Its a small batch so not much in terms of wastage. May be you should try finding a stick/immersion blender and come back here before you plan your next batch so you could double check.
I don't know if you could salvage this batch. Its a small batch so not much in terms of wastage. May be you should try finding a stick/immersion blender and come back here before you plan your next batch so you could double check.
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