Ohhh DeeAnnnnnaaaaa! Come out and play!

[MzMolly65]

holy cheeezuz .. *twirling in circles* ..

ok .. lemme see if I got this straight

1. input 100% of oils (not including sf oil) into recipe at 1% sf = lye a
2. superfat of choice (5%, 8%, 10%, etc.) / 100 .. eg. 8/100 = 0.08
3. 100% of oils - sf / 100 ... eg. 100-8= 92 92/100 = 0.92
4. lye a / 0.92 = b
5. b - lye a = lye discount (or lye d)
6. lye d / sap of SF oil = weight of sf oil to add after cook??

I'm totally not sure if the answer for step 6 is the weight of the SF oil to use or what .. it's your step 9 but I didn't understand what your voila meant .. besides voila! In order for me to understand this I'm trying to break it down into math only and few to no words. The explanations are really messing with my head. Math I understand, LOL!

 

[paillo]

I honestly have to say I don't think I'm doing a very good job explaining this one. Rather bummed by that.... :-(

Love your analogy, thank you so much from one who cried at - and flunked - every algebra story problem. I think I get it, woohoo! But too much math for me, I'm gonna stick to my CP with superfat built in. I only HP if I've completely messed up a batch already. Is that a copout?

 

[DeeAnna]

MzMollie asked: "...6. lye d / sap of SF oil = weight of sf oil to add after cook??..." Yes, you're right!

Paillo -- It's a treat to see people work so hard at this, and I'm glad you've spent the time to puzzle on the problem with us. I'ts no copout to stick with CP or even with HP where you put all the oils into the soap pot and let the lye choose what the superfat is. This idea of adding a specific fat after the cook is definitely an "extra credit" problem.

PS: MzMolly, I keep mis-spelling your name. It's because I had a sweet pup named Mollie and I lost her this past summer, so I keep mixing up her name with the "ie" ending rather than the "y" in your name. My apologies.

 

[MzMolly65]

PS: MzMolly, I keep mis-spelling your name. It's because I had a sweet pup named Mollie and I lost her this past summer, so I keep mixing up her name with the "ie" ending rather than the "y" in your name. My apologies.

No apologies necessary .. mom always said, "Call me anything, just don't call me late for dinner."

Molly, Mollie .. it's all the same to me. It's not even my real name LOL!!

It's the name my hubbie calls me based on the email address I had when we met on a chat board much like this one. He knew me by only that email address for over a year before he ever knew my real name. Molly's stuck and I like it better than my real name so I'm going to legally change my name when all my immigration paper work is settled. FWIW, that email address was based on a molly mule I used to have so that makes it even funnier.

 

[DeeAnna]

My name gets misspelled and mispronounced quite a bit, so I totally get your point about "call me anything..." Dee works too; it's what my family calls me.

Here's my Mollie with her sister Gypsy. All our dogs are rescues, by the way.

 

[Lin]

My name gets mispelled constantly. I understand the misspelling, Lynn or Linn or Lyn seem to be more common. But what really drives me nuts is how I spell it out for the person, and they STILL can't get it right.
"L-y-n-n?"
"No, L i n"
"L i n n?"
"no, one n. L i n."
"Oh, L y n."
"NO. L i n"
"OH, L i n. Oh, gotcha"
*repeat the next time I talk to this person*

Beautiful dogs. I had a foster dog named Molly. I lost my service dog Tessa December 20th, she's with me in my avatar. I'm still much in shock and denial, it was completely unexpected.

 

[grayceworks]

holy cheeezuz .. *twirling in circles* ..

ok .. lemme see if I got this straight

1. input 100% of oils (not including sf oil) into recipe at 1% sf = lye a
2. superfat of choice (5%, 8%, 10%, etc.) / 100 .. eg. 8/100 = 0.08
3. 100% of oils - sf / 100 ... eg. 100-8= 92 92/100 = 0.92
4. lye a / 0.92 = b
5. b - lye a = lye discount (or lye d)
6. lye d / sap of SF oil = weight of sf oil to add after cook??

I'm totally not sure if the answer for step 6 is the weight of the SF oil to use or what .. it's your step 9 but I didn't understand what your voila meant .. besides voila! In order for me to understand this I'm trying to break it down into math only and few to no words. The explanations are really messing with my head. Math I understand, LOL!

YESSSSSSS!!!! You got the concept down! Yayyyy! Yes, Step 6 in your answer here is the weight of the SF oil to use after the cook.

Just one little distinction though, and don't let it confuse you... you have the math part down already...

Step 3 is not 100% of oils, it's the total 100% of the lye (lye.b) you're looking for, minus the amount of lye you want to discount (lye.d) to get your soap superfatted with an as yet unknown weight of oil. Because that number may or may not match up with 8% of your oil weight in the end. It is just that you are wanting to discount the lye needed to saponify your oils by 8%.

Because different oils have different weights even if it takes the same amt of lye to saponify them. Thus the different SAPs.

It's a fine distinction, but it becomes a bigger distinction in DeeAnna's examples contrasting the pumpkin seed oil with meadowfoam oil...

 

[grayceworks]

Ok, I kinda rewrote again, similar to how you rewrote it, and maybe it will be clearer than my previous?


So in #2, we're saying we want 8% superfat, yes, but to achieve that, in #3 we are discounting (lye.d) the (as yet unknown amount) 100% of the lye (lye.b) by 8%, leaving us with the 92% of the lye (lye.a) that we already DO know from #1, and then solving for lye.b in #4 to find out how much that 100% actually IS.

So it would be something like the following, working with weights and percents, ie: lye.a weight and lye.a percent... (I know I STILL make it too wordy *sigh*)

#1 Enter 100% of oils (not including SF oil) into recipe at 1% SF.
This is the part of the recipe you will cook.
write down lye weight for this recipe.
This is going to become lye.a weight
(example: lye.a weight = 4.07oz)

#2: choose SF oil and percent of choice = (8%, 10% etc)
SF.percent = lye.discount percent (lye.d percent) = SF / 100 = .xx
(example: 8% SF = 8% lye.d percent = 8/100 = .08 )

#3: lye.a percent = 100% - lye.d percent
(example: lye.a percent = 100% - 8% = 92% = 92/100 = .92)

#4: lye.b weight = lye.a weight / lye.a percent
(example: lye.b weight = 4.07oz / .92 = 4.42oz)

#5: lye.b weight - lye.a weight = lye.d weight
(example: 4.42oz - 4.07oz = .35oz)

#6: lye.d weight / Oil.SAP = Oil.SF.weight
(example:

• JojobaOil.SAP= .066 so .35oz / .066 = 5.30oz of Jojoba oil @ 8%SF
• SheaButter.SAP= .128 so .35oz /.128 = 2.73oz Shea Butter @ 8%SF
• CoconutOil.SAP= .183 so .35oz / .183 = 1.91oz Coconut Oil @ 8%SF
• Meadowfoam.SAP= .12 so .35oz / .12 = 2.92oz MeadowfoamOil @ 8%SF
• SawPalmetto.SAP= .167 so .35oz/.167= 2.09oz SawPalmetto Oil @ 8%SF

)

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

In my method, the place holder oil used is NOT for lye calculation - I only calculated the lye on the oils with out my SF oil. So the SAP value is not required.

If I just make a batch at 2% SF and cook it until it is finished and then add more oil, why do we need to know how much lye would have been needed for the whole batch? That is what I don't get.

If I know that the smaller batch at 2%SF + an amount of SF oil = my desired batch size with the correct SF %, what more do we need?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Exactly! You'd possibly end up lye-heavy in the soaping recipe, so that after you cooked, there would still be unreacted lye to eat up any SF you add after, defeating the purpose! ......

This is the part that I don't actually let in, as I feel it is wrong!

So
all oils together = (oils a)
oils with out my SF = (oils b)

If I use soap calc to give me a lye amount for a 2% SF recipe using (oils b) then the recipe itself won't be lye heavy, as there is no difference between what I am doing here and what everyone does with soap calc. I have a recipe with a 2% SF, not a lye heavy recipe.

If I add more oil in after the cook, I am adding oils to a 2% SF'd batch of soap, so my extra fat is super fat. I need to know what weight of SF oil to add to get to (oils a) which I can work out as I did using soap calc on the % of recipe or weight of recipe settings

How much lye is required for the SF oil is not required, as we don't want to saponify it!

 

[grayceworks]

... you could just do step 1 all by itself and have a low superfat recipe, or you could add oil afterwards willy-nilly and not know for sure how much SF there us, but if you want to know specifically how much of a specific oil will SF your recipe in step1 by the amount you chose in step 2, then you need to know exactly how much lye is being discounted. ...

If you are wanting to find the exact amount of oil that a lye discount will handle, then you need to know the whole amount of lye first, to find out the discounted amount of lye, to find out the weight of the oil that the discounted amount of lye would have handled.

If you are adding 8% of your oil weight after the fact, that's not necessarily superfatted 8%, depending on the oil's SAP value. Unless your oil's SAP is about the same as the SAP average in your base oils recipe. But if it's not, then you need a way to find the correct amount of oil that your lye discount covers.

We're finding the whole weight of the lye first, because that's the easiest thing to figure out in the equation, based on the only constants we have, which are the lye weight and percent after the discount, the lye discount percent (but not the weight yet), and the SAP of the oil we want to use. We don't know the amount of the lye we're discounting until we know the whole amount of the lye. and if we don't know the amount of lye we're discounting, then we can't use it with the SAP to find the weight of the oil we need.

You are figuring the weight of oil as a percent of the oils in your recipe.

It's not going to be the same for every oil though, so if you were figuring, for example, 2oz of Jojoba Oil. In the example I gave above, that's not coming anywhere near to superfatting the recipe at 8%, while if I used 2oz of Coconut Oil, same weight of oils, but it will more than superfat at 8%.

Try doing it your way with say.... Babassu instead of Pumpkin Seed oil. See what you come up with. Following your recipe and method exactly, you get the same 90g of oil when figuring a percent of oil weight.

However in doing the exact math, you come up with only requiring 73.97g of Babassu to SF the additional 8% after the cook, rather than 90g. Either that or an additional 2g of lye to get ONLY 10% total SF for that batch.

So like DeeAnna and I have been saying, you can either guesstimate your SF amount based on a percent of the oils, which is easier, but not necessarily accurate. If you have something with a higher SAP than most of the oils in your recipe, you'll end up overly superfatted, but if the SAP is lower than the oils in your recipe, you'll end up with less superfat than you thought.

Or you can do the calculations to find out the exact weight of lye you are discounting, and using this, calculate the superfat amount specific to your special oil.

Most people will probably do the % of oils, simply because it's easier.

I wish I could put together a spreadsheet that would do the superfat calculations for you for special oils. I probably could given enough time... Lemme think on this. I think I can do it. All the SAP values are in the various lye calculators. Hmmm....

 

[grayceworks]

This is the part that I don't actually let in, as I feel it is wrong!

If I use soap calc to give me a lye amount for a 2% SF recipe using (oils b) then the recipe itself won't be lye heavy, as there is no difference between what I am doing here and what everyone does with soap calc. I have a recipe with a 2% SF, not a lye heavy recipe.

I was typing the first in response to part of DeeAnna's explanation, and also assuming that you were using the placeholder oil in your calculations, which I later read that you weren't.

If you are not using the placeholder oil in your calculations, then you will indeed have a 2% SF recipe after the cook. You are correct. To which you can add additional oils and increase the SF %.

How much additional oils for a SPECIFIC oil is different from how much additional oils in soapcalc, because soapcalc does it's discount based on an average of all the oils in the recipe. While we were doing the lye discount based on the actual lye amount required for that specific oil, which is why we needed to find the actual lye amount, and not use the percent of recipe oils weights. Because depending on the SAP value, there will be different answers.

 

[grayceworks]

Ok, yeah. I am going to try my hand at making a spreadsheet calculator thingy. It will be a good challenge!

 

[grayceworks]

Puppiessss!!!! *squee*

IN the water dish. Of course. lol

My 2 kitties are rescues. Both Maine Coon mixes. But only one likes to play in the water. Sits in the sink and whines until I turn the water on, then gets the whole bathroom wet playing. Other kitty just *looks* at me. You know the look. The "she's crazy and I don't want to be associated with her" look. lol

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I think that a confusion is between super fat and lye discount. In CP they are essentially the same, as you can either put more of your mix of oils in (superfat) or less lye (lye discount). In CP, adding x% more of a certain oil does not increase the superfat or lye discount by the same x% as the total lye is based on the SAP values of the oils and their percentages in the mix.

So to do a lye discount method of adding an oil afterward, I think your way would make sense, but is not required. We're not discounting lye - we're superfatting! We are taking a perfectly functional recipe (a) which has a SF or lye discount and then adding in more oil (b) to make a full batch (c).

If (a) is at 2% SF and we know that (b) is 8% of (c) then by adding (b) to (a) when (a) is cooked we get to (c) with a 10% SF.

The lye discount will not be the same at all in this case, but then that is lye discount and not superfat. Normally the two are the same thing, when talking CP or HP with no specific oil after the cook. But we're not talking about that.

We don't need to discount lye for an "after the cook" superfat as the lye is only needed for (a). (a) has the lye discount worked out by soap calc.

(c) has 10% of the total weight of oils unsaponified and free. It is 10% super fatted.

 

[grayceworks]

Okay. We will have to each just agree that we'll just do the method which works best for us, I think, because I don't know how else to explain it and you're not understanding the reason for needing to know the full recipe amounts, soooo... dunno lol.
Anyhow, either method will superfat your soap to a perfecty fine degree.


I have a working calculator started for calculating SF oils using their SAP and the lye amount of the base recipe. Just have to clean it up a bit.
,

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I think we are together - lye discount or superfat. You're discounting lye, I'm super fatting

Edit to expand on it -

I understand fully the reason for working out the amount of lye needed for all of the oils for a lye discount. It makes sense now, as you are taking away from the total lye amount.

What didn't make sense was that I didn't see the need to do it in that way for what we were ultimately trying to achieve - more of one certain oil added in after the cook - when the other method is much easier, for me at least.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...How much lye is required for the SF oil is not required, as we don't want to saponify it! ...."

This is true, Gent, but the lye required for the SF is what determines the amount of superfat oil.

"...If I use soap calc to give me a lye amount for a 2% SF recipe using (oils b) then the recipe itself won't be lye heavy..."

This is mathematically correct but not necessarily chemically correct. This method of calculating SF will be chemically correct in two of three circumstances:
(1) HP and CP methods in which you mix all of your oils together and letting the lye choose the superfat.
OR
(2) when your special superfat oil added after an HP cook has a saponification value very close to the SV of your mixed oils. Your pumpkinseed recipe meets Case 2 conditions.

It will not be chemically correct in a third situation:
(3) If the special superfat oil added after the cook has a SV quite different than the SV of the mixed oils. The recipe in which I substituted meadowfoam seed for the pumpkinseed falls in this category.

 

[DeeAnna]

But I will also add -- whatever works for the soapmaker is what works. Perhaps it's time to agree to disagree and move on?

 

[Belinda02]

I think DeeAnna's post #78 is a good summery. But does it really matter in large batches versus small and wouldn't a large number of oils versus a small number impact differently. Brain still sucking in coffee and could be slush.