olive oil terror

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Happysoap

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I plan on expanding my offer of soapy goidness with some human and dog shampoo. Everybodies favorite main ingredient ~ olive oil. In the past I have had issues with oil that was labeled as olive oil but would not saphonify no matter what you do to it. Cook it, bake it. nothibg. it was horrible. A week ago I bougt some pomace olive oil and did some tests. cp took three days to get to a very spongy state. Its been a week and I still can not unmold it. Maybe i could but it feels very soft. What could be an issue? Do I have another olive oil alteration on my hands! Lye to water 1:1:yawn:
 
This sounds very strange. With "normal" amount of water, it might take a week until you are able to cut a pure Castile, but with 1:1 lye solution things should go very fast. This is my experience with Castile.

To me it sounds like you have either bad lye or bad oil (or both). Have you checked the ingredient list on the oil bottle? I do not know what the law say there were you are living, but there is a big chance they have to declare all ingredients. There should read only olive oil and nothing else.
 
My Castile was cut within a week and I really don't struggle with it. But then I get mine from the local supermarket and in the EU it is pretty well regulated to be fair - they can't just call it what they want if it is not actually OO
 
my lye works great in every other recipe. i guess i will go pick up another brand and try it with that.this is frustrating....
 
I don't know if you have a Costco where you are at, but I have always had good results with their olive oil. It is also reasonably priced. Sorry for your oo troubles! I wouldn't think that oo should be so difficult...
Cheers!
Anna Marie
 
that sounds weird.... where are you living and what brand of OO are you using?
 
I use La Romanella Pomace from Smart & Final with a 39% lye solution and 0 superfat. My batter traces in 10 minutes or so. With a 50 lye solution you should have no problem unless not all your lye is dissolving in your 50/50 solution. It takes a lot of stirring to get all the lye dissolved. Are you adding anything other than lye to your 50/50 solution?
 

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