Pouring oils cleanly, mixing Palm oil and various other questions(aka tell me I'm not too stupid for this)

[ravenscents]

I have two basic receipts. Lard and Crisco. I made myself preprinted note cards that I use for each batch.
Date, FO, mica, and temps.
I draw out my design On the back, I make notes on acceleration, trace, gel And anything funky, I keep the notecards with the curing batch to continue to make notes as the batch cures.

 

[KimR]

Love the ideas. I too had problems saving formulas on Soap Calc. I always run changes through it but as a newbie I found another option. I started using the Recipe Keeper App where I have the recipe, photos, notes, and can all be subcategorized into CP, HP, Milk Soaps & M & pour. Has been helpful as I change and evolve recipes.

 

[Iluminameluna]

Has anyone here heard of or tried Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator. You can add additives, with as much detail as you want, notes, with each batch, and add ingredients that aren't included in the list of need be. It was created by members of this forum, and the many of the older members of this forum contributed ideas that went into how it works. I love it, and it makes my soaping so much more enjoyable!
It almost feels like I can organize my batches on it, before I move from the couch!
I'll attach a photo of one of my latest recipes just to show what a finished recipe looks like.
But essentially, for me, organizing a soaping session takes DAYS. I've an autoimmune issue so fatigue has to be worked into the equation. Add 3 grandchildren I'm helping to raise, and an adult son all with ADHD, and my time has to be carved out with an axe or I don't get any time to myself. I adore my children, but soaping is my creative outlet, along with cooking, but soaping requires that NO ONE can be around when I actually do the lye. Which means it has to be in the middle of the night, and outside my front door because I live in an apt complex.
Lucky for me, I don't have to use micas or scents, since it's only my family that will use my soaps and they like that I use the spices I use in my cooking. It's a bragging point when they share with their significant other's family sometimes.
So I do as someone else mentioned: I mix soft oils, separately from hard oils which I then melt. I use painter's tape to put containers' weight on each, to make it easy to remove it later because I DON'T have separate dishes for soaping. Once everything is weighed, the oils/fats/additives are blended and set aside. THEN the lye solution is made. And I do it last because if, for some reason I decide to change the oils, or I'm missing 1 or more of them, OR I get sick, I can easily put aside the oils for as long as necessary, but I can't do that with the lye.
I just wanted to add that, because I had to learn that one the hard way.
Thanks, @amd, @deanna, and all the soaping veterans who have helped us noobs so much. That's buy way of apologizing for my brain going on the fritz just now, and forgetting the other folks' names ... Geez!

 

[LilianNoir]

@Iluminameluna
I feel ya on the autoimmune thing. Solidarity, friend. I've got several auto immune issues and post chemo fatigue and memory issues(even 5 years later). It's good to see what others in similar situations do.

 

[AliOop]

Has anyone here heard of or tried Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator.
...

THEN the lye solution is made. And I do it last because if, for some reason I decide to change the oils, or I'm missing 1 or more of them, OR I get sick, I can easily put aside the oils for as long as necessary, but I can't do that with the lye.

Yes, that is the only soap calculator I use now. I love being able to store recipes. I also plan to start tracking my ingredients in it. That's because I recently bought more coconut oil without remembering that I had several Costco-sized jars on the shelves in the garage. Oops.

I'm not sure what bad experience you had, but you absolutely can make your lye water ahead of time. You just need to make sure that it is in a suitable container (stainless steel, or HDPE #2 or #5) with a tight-fitting lid. And of course, it must also be marked as hazardous and stored out of the reach of children. If you do all those things, your lye water will remain good for months.

For more information about that, search this forum for "masterbatching lye." Many members do just that so when they want to soap, the lye water is always ready AND cool.

Sorry about the autoimmune issues. My husband suffers from those as well. It's a rough road. Glad you take time to do things that give you joy.

 

[LilianNoir]

Reviving this because the thread isn't that old and this is still applicable.

You guys. I cannot pour from the 5-7# buckets.

I just... How???

So the house has been getting to admit 79/80 lately (it's Florida, the house is very poorly insulated, and the a/c is struggling. The landlord is coming to look at AC this weekend but the insulation isn't changing anytime soon) so my palm and coconut oil have been thick liquids instead of firm. They're both in 7lb buckets and since I can't scoop, it's either try to pour from the bucket (do not recommend) or use a ladle, which takes forever. I thought about transferring to a more pour friendly container, but it won't be like this forever.

Any ideas?

 

[Catscankim]

Hi Florida sister.

so im no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but i have found in my venture thus far....

I am ocd lol.

i have developed the habit of rewriting down all of my recipe each time. I dont know why. I guess it forces me to remember steps. (Also this coming from the person that forgot to put my milk and honey soap in the freezer....but i also didnt write that step down lol.)

I do all of my measuring ahead of time, then if i spill some oils its like BONUS rub it on my arms lol. I dont use gloves for anything in the beginning, not even measuring the dry lye.

Been using disposable cups lately. I know thats not very eco friendly, but on the outside of each cup i write the contents, even if its obvious, with a sharpie. Cleaning out my little glass cups that contained colorant is a pita. Plus my sink is white and they were staining it.

I mark measurements on the outside of my plastic pouring containers with a sharpie cause its too hard to see the measurements, especially when you are rushing to divide up the batter.

I go out and smoke and reread everything to make sure everything is measured out so i am not rushing to weigh something. Then i start soaping.

That just became my methodical madness when making soap lol.

Oh, and while soaping, i change my gloves often. Probably more often than i need too lol. But i work in a hospital, its just a habit... Get something on your gloves and change your gloves ( but its usually something more gross than soap ingredients). It does cut down on mess though. I go through a lot of gloves.

And i pre- pull out paper towels so that i can just grab em off the counter instead of “contaminating” the whole roll with lye.

MY problem right now is the cleanup. I was trying to wash all my containers right away, but since i graduated to using charcoal and micas ,the containers etc were staining my sink really bad. I started letting them dry out over night...sink of hot soapy water the next day and its clean.

Im a noob. But these are some things that helped me get over the stress.

 

[shunt2011]

My coconut is in a 5lb bucket. It's slushy this time of year. I just use a measuring cup to scoop it out. My palm is really soft it's a 50lb cube. I just use a ice cream spade or a large spoon/ladle. It doesn't take that long to scoop it out. I make 6-12 lbs at a time.

 

[Iluminameluna]

Reviving this because the thread isn't that old and this is still applicable.

You guys. I cannot pour from the 5-7# buckets.

I just... How???

So the house has been getting to admit 79/80 lately (it's Florida, the house is very poorly insulated, and the a/c is struggling. The landlord is coming to look at AC this weekend but the insulation isn't changing anytime soon) so my palm and coconut oil have been thick liquids instead of firm. They're both in 7lb buckets and since I can't scoop, it's either try to pour from the bucket (do not recommend) or use a ladle, which takes forever. I thought about transferring to a more pour friendly container, but it won't be like this forever.

Any ideas?

I sympathize. My son brought home a 48lb pack of lard after I asked if he could get me a 4lb bucket of lard from the local store down the street. Wow. Love my son, right?
But lard stays super hard in punt pantry because even in our Texas heat, the where our pantry is located, it's well away from anything that generates heat. And our place had to stay cool because my son's work demands we keep the house at about 73F no matter what.
So in order to keep some kind of workable chunks of lard on hand, I had to ask him (I don't have the strength) to take out 3 to 5# portions of it and put them in the plastic bags I'd been collecting from the school lunches we'd been getting. Each bag got labeled with date and weight, put into a bigger bag, and a cardboard tag attached with what number of bags and their weight were in them, but that was just overkill as it turned out. It was just 10 bags that didn't take up that much space. They ended up fitting in 2 large Cheerios boxes I'd kept. I pasted 2 binder paper sheets, 1 on each side, with what was inside, in pencil so I could re-use the them.

 

[Megan]

Reviving this because the thread isn't that old and this is still applicable.

You guys. I cannot pour from the 5-7# buckets.

I just... How???

So the house has been getting to admit 79/80 lately (it's Florida, the house is very poorly insulated, and the a/c is struggling. The landlord is coming to look at AC this weekend but the insulation isn't changing anytime soon) so my palm and coconut oil have been thick liquids instead of firm. They're both in 7lb buckets and since I can't scoop, it's either try to pour from the bucket (do not recommend) or use a ladle, which takes forever. I thought about transferring to a more pour friendly container, but it won't be like this forever.

Any ideas?

I would recommend to eyeball your amount and pour into a secondary container what you think you are going to use. Measure then from your secondary container for your batch oil. Now if I were doing this, I would discard the rest (because of cross contamination concerns, you never put material back into your clean raw material container in chemistry and that's kind of stuck with me)...but you could just as easily pour the excess back into your 7# jug as well.

 

[TheGecko]

You guys. I cannot pour from the 5-7# buckets. I just... How???

In order to save money, I bought a 35 lb bucket of Palm Oil and Palm Oil (unless it's the 'no-stir' kind or shortening) has to be melted before it can be used. I took me a good hour and it was still a mess regardless of how careful I was. There was no freaking way I was going to go through that everytime I wanted to make soap so I waited until the Oil started to thicken up a bit at around 90F, gave it a vigorous stir and then using a 4-cup measuring cup, pour it into 1 gallon freezer bags (about 3/4s full). I removed most of the air out of the bags, laid them flat to resolidify and then put them back into the bucket. Oh...and I stirred the bucket between each bag. Now...when my palm container (microwavable) that I keep in my soaping cart (rolling kitchen island) gets low...all I have to do is grab a bag, put it in the sink with some hot water and then pour into my container.

When I get paid next, I am ordering some one and five pound buckets with lids and handles and am going to start master/bulk batching my lye solution and oils/butters for my Regular soaps and oils/butters for my Goat Milk soaps. Lisa at "I Dream in Soap" does this and it was a like a light bulb exploding in my head! I had 'master batched' before...but in singular batches. It was okay, but then I had a bunch of containers filled with lye solution and oils/butters sitting in my garage. I like the idea of just having one bucket of each that can be easily stored under the lower shelf in my garage and easily handled in one go. Then when the buckets get lower than a single batch, I just pour off into another container...clean, and rebatch.