Palm Oil Separation

[Veggiebin]

Hello!

I am a cp soap maker, been doing this for several years, and I had a question about palm oil. It is often separated when I receive it, and I therefore melt it down before using it. I was wondering what practices people have in place to make this process easier.

I see that you can now buy a no stir palm oil, which I may do next time. And, I have tried a warming belt around the 50 lb pail, but it didn’t work for me - maybe not the right kind?

From what I’ve read in other posts, some people melt and then measure it out in smaller batches, which appeals to me somewhat. But I’m wondering what kind of containers you would put it in. Something stackable, for easy storage, would be ideal, but I’m not sure where to get something like that?

Any suggestions from the community here?

 

[shunt2011]

Okay, now I see. You can melt or down and portion it out into smaller buckets. If it arrives melted I would just stir it periodically until it firms back up.

However, I never do either and I just make sure I scoop down in depth rather than just taking it from the surface. I never had an issue with my soaps.

I no longer use much palm these days and mostly use lard.

 

[cmzaha]

I am another one that does not melt it down and separate it, don't have the time or energy. What I do is scoop from different areas of the bucket, well that is when I was still buying it in buckets. I now purchase 50 lb blocks of Palm Shortening, which is the same as most, if not all, no stir palm, and transfer it to a 5 gallon bucket

 

[Veggiebin]

Thank you both for your replies!

I don’t always feel it is necessary, and will do what cmzaha has done. However, over the years I’ve had a few batches of palm oil be extremely separated - the one I opened yesterday was one of those, and I had purchased it a few months ago. It had a large pool of standing liquid oil taking up half of the top portion. I almost stopped midway through because the texture was more consistent, but I’m glad I decided to go all the way to the bottom, as there was another liquid pool down there.

I ended up realizing that I had more than 33 mason jars in my cupboard and weighed out the amount I generally use in my recipes. They will be easy to melt and pour when I need them. I could almost see doing the same for my coconut oil, as I struggle with scooping that out when it’s cold out. Or maybe mix the two so the resulting oil is softer during the winters. Anyone else do this?

I use coconut for a lot of other things though, so I wouldn’t want to do all of it

 

[NsMar42111]

Look into masterbatching your recipe if you have one that you use a lot, then you don't have to worry about it anymore?

 

[Lin19687]

I put it in a 5 gallon pale with lid .

 

[Veggiebin]

So, when you master batch, do you mix all of your oils, liquid and solid, melt them together and store them like that? Then just take out however much you need for your recipe!each time? It would still need to be melted again before using, wouldn’t it? My oils go into a semi solid state if allowed to cool. I’ve thought about this in the past, but not because of the palm oil, but because I soap in my basement and the coconut oil gets so hard in the winter I nearly have blisters on my hands if I scoop out more than two batches worth. And does anyone make lye in a master batch volume? If so, do you have problems with it staying in solution for longer periods of time? How do you store it?

Thanks!!!!

 

[earlene]

Masterbatching oils is something I don't do, but I have noticed that some soapers who do, generally make several bucketsful (or other containerz) of single batches for their particular batch size. Some mention masterbatching only the hard oils, while others mention doing a complete set of oils for their recipe. Then all that is needed is to melt the mb oils when making the next batch of soap.

I do, and so do many others here masterbatch our lye. The volume to masterbatch depends on ones personal needs as well as available storage.

 

[shunt2011]

I master batch both my oils and lye. I batch my oils in a 5 gallon bucket. I use high lard and a good amount of a Coconut then Shea, olive and castor. I store it in a mildly heated carport. My lye I master batch a 50/50 solution in a large pot then transfer it to a well cleaned laundry soap container. It can be stored for quite a long time with no problems.