Palm Oil

[Natalie]

I just got an order from Columbus Foods/Soapers Choice. One of the oils I purchased was:

Palm Oil - refined, bleached and deodorized

On the label it said "melt and mix before using." Something like that, it's not infront of me at the moment.

Why do I need to melt and mix this? What do you think will happen if I don't? I made soap with it, or I should say I went thought the motions of making soap because there wasn't any soap when I was done. It was one oily gooey mess when I put it in the mold, and so liquidy some leaked through the mold. I couldn't get it to trace.

There were several issues going on at the time-my oils and lye may have gotten too cold by the time I was mixed (it was chilly and I had the window open-but I could have sworn that they were both around 100 when I poured the lye in the oils) and my stick blender was acting up. I stirred so much it the blender was heating up. Instead of thickening, the mixture was getting bubbily/frothy on top. It was also using a new recipe, but with my usual ingredients and instead of palm kernal oil I used the palm oil.

I'm just wondering if it the mess was from not mixing up the palm oil first. I've never had a batch come out like this, this was awfal from the start.

 

[cdwinsby]

Palm oil and palm kernel oil aren't interchangeable. Palm kernal oil is very similar to coconut oil. This shouldn't have ruined your batch though unless you didn't run the recipe through a lye calculator to get the new lye amount. Palm oil has a NaOH SAP value of 0.142 and Palm Kernel oil has a NaOH SAP value of 0.176 - according to SoapCalc.

I think the need for stirring is due to the palmitic acid settling out....can't quite rememeber. I've never melted my buckets of palm oil and stirred them up before using. I just scoop some out and melt it along with everything else. This could get me in trouble I suppose but I've never had any problem before. Perhaps the brand I buy doesn't require it either since it doesn't say anything about it. Maybe one of the other forum members who buys from them will be more helpful.

 

[carebear]

yes, the palmitic acid portion (the hardness part) can settle out when it's in a liquid or sludge phase. And I agree they are not interchangeable so you will need a new lye calculation (and need to expect a different finished product) when you sub one for the other - but if you used palm instead of PKO in any substantial amount without recalculating it's likely you have lye heavy soap that would make it a brick...

so I'm betting on the "mix well" thing.

 

[mandolyn]

yes, the palmitic acid portion (the hardness part) can settle out when it's in a liquid or sludge phase. And I agree they are not interchangeable so you will need a new lye calculation (and need to expect a different finished product) when you sub one for the other - but if you used palm instead of PKO in any substantial amount without recalculating it's likely you have lye heavy soap that would make it a brick...

so I'm betting on the "mix well" thing.

That's exactly right. My Palm oil comes in a jug, so I have to melt it to pour it out & then shake like crazy, 'cause the hard part will settle to the bottom.

 

[IrishLass]

Palm oil comes either in the hydrogenated, no-stir version, or the regular "needs-to-be-melted-and-stirred-before-use' version. Columbus Foods sells both versions.

Think of it as the difference between natural peanut butter and Skippy peanut butter. The natural type separates and needs to be stirred before use or else you'll have one really icky, either too oily, or else too dry PBJ sandwhich, while the other is hydrogenated and can be used perfectly right out of the jar without having to stir first.

What you can do with the regular palm is melt the entire contents of the container down, stir it really well while it's liquidy, and then pour it into smaller containers to make things more manageable when you go to soap.

As the others have already mentioned, Palm Oil is a completely different animal from PKO and they are not interchangeable.

Like Carebear, I'm betting that your oily soap stems from not stirring the palm.

IrishLass

 

[carebear]

by the way, the no stir palm comes only in 50# "cubes" and is a great item (along with palm kernel oil flakes) for co-ops!

 

[Deda]

I use DHs 7 iron to stir up my 50# pails.

 

[Natalie]

Thanks everyone for your input! It must be from not stirring the palm, it seems. Tomorrow night I'll be soaping again and will melt and stir it this time.

How do you all stir, by hand or a mixer?

And yes, I knew there was a difference if I change PKO for the regular palm, and ran it through soapcalc first. I run everything through that, it's a handy thing! Actually, when it wouldn't trace I checked on soapcalc again thinking I wrote the wrong amount of something, but I had it correct.