Questions about oils and butters (tempering and storage)

[FrayGrants]

Okay so I am fairly new to soaping and I just received my first bulk order of oils and butters and I have several questions about usage and storage. I read somewhere about tempering butters by heating them for a period and then rapidly cooling to ensure even fat distribution. Now this leads to several other questions about tempering and storage.

For hard oils such as palm and coconut, could I heat them for even fat distribution and then refrigerate them in containers where I can scoop them out. This way I wouldn't have to heat and stir them before every use. Is this possible, what do you all do with your hard oils? Doesn't heating and reheating the same oil over and over degrade it over time?

I am still in the research and development phase so I am making small batches and if my "tempering" idea is feasible it is certainly what I will be doing.

What do you all do with your oils as far as getting around separation and long term storage? Let me know thanks!!!

 

[DianaMoon]

I read somewhere about tempering butters by heating them for a period and then rapidly cooling to ensure even fat distribution.

That sounds like a myth to me. Willing to be corrected, but an oil or a butter is a combination of fatty acids and you won't distribute them more "evenly" by melting/heating them.

Since I don't use palm I can't speak about it, but everything else I store in the fridge, including oils. If I had a cool, dark place to store them, that's what I'd do but I don't.

Some cocoa butter comes in chips/wafers, which help to melt easily & uniformly. If you melted CB and then put it back in the fridge, it would just harden up again. About degrading, I'm not a scientist but I can't believe it's good to reheat oils. I think the best plan is to handle them as little as possible before soaping.