Problem? with no paste liquid soap

[Bladesmith]

Hey. I am trying to make a no paste liquid soap recipe out of Jackie Thompson's Liquid Soapmaking book. You add glycerin to the lye water and potassium carbonate to dilution water. And you dilute it at trace.

I actually tried it once yesterday and it boiled over because I wasn't paying attention to the temps and spent quite a while cleaning soap off the stovetop.

Trying again today and I started to add dilution water (with the potassium carbonate in it) and it froze up and solidified almost instantly. After adding the rest of the dilution water, I was able to get it to recombine with the stick blender. Now all I can see is suds/bubbles. I'm assuming there is some liquid down in the bottom but I honestly cannot tell. It seems like it's all bubbles. At this point, I'm supposed to let it cook until it goes transparent. No idea how I'm supposed to tell if it's transparent if I can't see anything other than bubbles!!

Is this another failed batch? Does someone have experience with this? Is this a normal thing?

Here's a picture of it right now.

Thanks,
Cody

 

[Bladesmith]

Been cooking for over an hour now. Still bubbles. If I put some bubbles on my finger, they will lather. I just wish they'd go away. Ugh, just not sure what to do. Maybe I'll just pour it into another container and see what I've got.

 

[Bladesmith]

Well there was transparent soap underneath the mountain of bubbles. Not sure how to prevent the bubbles next time.

 

[BattleGnome]

Spray the bubbles with 90% rubbing alcohol, that will get them to pop. You should be able to follow the recipe from there.

I’ve never seen/heard of this method so I cannot be of more help

 

[steffamarie]

I'm not familiar with this method, but I had great success with the method that IrishLass details in her post here.

 

[Bladesmith]

May have to try that method. The idea with this one is to eliminate the paste altogether. I did end up with 3 qts of soap here at the end but I'm thinking the paste might be easier, lol.

 

[Bladesmith]

Does the zap test work for liquid soap?

And for anyone familiar with using phenolphthalein, does this look too alkaline?

 

[steffamarie]

Does the zap test work for liquid soap?

And for anyone familiar with using phenolphthalein, does this look too alkaline?

View attachment 38491

The zap test does work for LS, except usually I think you zap test the paste. In this case I'm not sure whether it would work or be accurate.

 

[Bladesmith]

Okay. The reason I asked... the author of the book recommended neutralizing excess alkali for the no paste method by mixing an excess of stearic acid after the soap has finished cooking. The idea is that the stearic will go and neutralize excess alkali and the excess stearic floats to the top and can be strained out. I put more stearic than the author said but I just did a tongue test and I could swear there's a little bit of a zap. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I've never experienced a zap before. Ugh

 

[steffamarie]

Okay. The reason I asked... the author of the book recommended neutralizing excess alkali for the no paste method by mixing an excess of stearic acid after the soap has finished cooking. The idea is that the stearic will go and neutralize excess alkali and the excess stearic floats to the top and can be strained out. I put more stearic than the author said but I just did a tongue test and I could swear there's a little bit of a zap. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I've never experienced a zap before. Ugh

Zap is pretty unmistakeable. It feels like touching your tongue to a 9-volt battery. If it's not a distinct ZING then it's probably not zappy and you've made successful soap!

 

[carolp]

Okay. The reason I asked... the author of the book recommended neutralizing excess alkali for the no paste method by mixing an excess of stearic acid after the soap has finished cooking. The idea is that the stearic will go and neutralize excess alkali and the excess stearic floats to the top and can be strained out. I put more stearic than the author said but I just did a tongue test and I could swear there's a little bit of a zap. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I've never experienced a zap before. Ugh

Hey. I am trying to make a no paste liquid soap recipe out of Jackie Thompson's Liquid Soapmaking book. You add glycerin to the lye water and potassium carbonate to dilution water. And you dilute it at trace.

I actually tried it once yesterday and it boiled over because I wasn't paying attention to the temps and spent quite a while cleaning soap off the stovetop.

Trying again today and I started to add dilution water (with the potassium carbonate in it) and it froze up and solidified almost instantly. After adding the rest of the dilution water, I was able to get it to recombine with the stick blender. Now all I can see is suds/bubbles. I'm assuming there is some liquid down in the bottom but I honestly cannot tell. It seems like it's all bubbles. At this point, I'm supposed to let it cook until it goes transparent. No idea how I'm supposed to tell if it's transparent if I can't see anything other than bubbles!!

Is this another failed batch? Does someone have experience with this? Is this a normal thing?

Here's a picture of it right now.
View attachment 38485

Thanks,
Cody

I am wondering how you soap turned out! I had the same issues that you did. After the boil over (ughh) I just left the soap and cleaned up the mess. When I looked at it about 10 min later, there was a thick glob of white on top. Then I went out for a couple of hours and now there is a thick layer of harder soap on top. I'm going to continue the process of checking neautrality tomorrow in the morning, and pretend that everything is OK! But would love to know what you did and how the final soap turned out.