Rebatching Lye heavy soap

[Meltiongson]

I just made my first soap cupcake yesterday and turned out as my first lye heavy soap also. Everything was ok until i checked it this morning, it was dry, crumbly and i notice there was little cracks on it. I search what may cause it and it could be lye heavy. i also zap test it and damn it did zapped me. I want to rebatch it, well can i rebatch it? Ive never rebatch a soap before but i want to try it. Its just a small batch 1lb, i could just throw this batch but i think its a perfect opportunity for me to try to rebatch it. But before i try to rebatch it, i would give it a couple of days and try to see some changes if it still zap or not. if it still the same, Can anyone help me on how rebatch a lye heavy soap? Is the process the same as other rebatching process or its different cause it was lye heavy? If anyone tried it before can you instruct me how to rebatch it? Thank you so much guys.

 

[Obsidian]

Wait a couple days and check again. Could you post your recipe though?

 

[boyago]

Do you have your ingredient list/recipe? You'd first need to know why it is so lye heavy so you know how much oil to use when you re batch to neutralize the lye. Did you run a lye calculator the first time around?

 

[Meltiongson]

CO 150g
PO 350g
Sunflower Oil 100g
Lye 86g
Water 210g

SF 5%

I run it through soap calc. I suspect it was the scale that give me inaccurate weight.

 

[roseb]

Check to make sure your scale is calibrated. 5 American quarters equal 1 oz.

 

[Ravenscourt Apothecary]

Run it through the soap calc and try to see where you went wrong. Then tweak the recipe by adding more oils/butters - make sure you superfat, as the saponification values are approximate. Best of luck! It's like learning how to drive in a new neighborhood - you get lost, but you learn your way around by finding how to get out of there!

 

[paillo]

Well, I have a lye-heavy disaster loaf, it will teach me to NEVER again make up multiple batches of two different sizes all at once. I made 6 batches, 3 for cylinders and 3 for 5-lb loaves, and obviously forgot to add a lot of an oil or the buttermilk to one of the loaves.

I poured and immediately realized it wasn't tall enough in the mold, but went ahead and let it gel in the mold.

Thinking I was pretty clever, I weighed the loaf against another loaf that should have roughly the same weight. But I still have the problem of not knowing if it was about 9 oz of buttermilk, OO or CO I left out. I think I'm gonna take a wild guess that it was the milk, and rebatch with milk.

This is what I get for getting distracted. Not only was I trying to do too many things at once, but I was attempting (badly) to do swing dance routines to AC/DC while soaping :crazy:

 

[Obsidian]

Paillo, do you think there is enough fats in 9 oz of milk to use up all the extra lye? I always though a lye heavy soap needed more oils/fats to saponify and not just liquid to dilute it down.

 

[Tienne]

Meltiongson, if you do find yourself having to rebatch, here's how I would go about it;

I tried running your numbers through soapcalc and what I did, is assume that since your soap zapped, your current superfat can be assumed to be zero (or below). Running the recipe on a zero % SF gave me 90.624 g lye. I am just assuming that the lye weight is where things may have gone wrong, because inaccurate scales usually are more inaccurate the lower you weigh. Since your lye weight is the lowest, that's why I just use that number and you gotta start somewhere and that's as good a place as any. Then I tweaked up the weight of your sunflower oil until I reached a 5% superfat that corresponded approx to those 90.624 g. Like this;

0% SF => 90.624 g lye

+ 25 g extra sunflower oil => 89.293 g

+ 30 g => 89.933 g

+ 35g => 90.573 g

So now we're getting close. From those numbers I would probably add at least 35 grams of sunflower oil more to your batch. You can safely add 40 or more, just in case your current effective SF is below zero. The worst thing that could happen is that your final superfat will be a little higher than 5%, but that won't be detrimental to your soap in any way.

You have a relatively high amount of water in your soap, so add more very sparingly when rebatching and just try with the extra oil first. If your soap looks dry when you're cooking it, you can add just a little bit more water, but wait and see if you even have to.

The smaller the batch you make, the harder it is to get the weights accurate and the less room there is for botching some measurements. When I do very small batches, like your is, I always set the soapcalc to a 1-2% higher SF than I otherwise would to account for that extra fudge factor possibility. That reduces the likelihood you'll get a lye heavy soap and a higher superfat never hurt no-one.

I hope that helps!

 

[Tienne]

Oh, btw! I was not implying by my numbers that you weighed 4 grams wrong on the lye. Maybe your weight weighed ALL your ingredients inaccurately but we can't ever know what exactly it DID weigh out or what exactly is in your batch. All we can try to do is assume that you now have a zero % superfat and go from there. A few grams extra or less of oils doesn't matter nearly as much as a few grams more of lye does. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Good luck on the rebatch!

 

[paillo]

Paillo, do you think there is enough fats in 9 oz of milk to use up all the extra lye? I always though a lye heavy soap needed more oils/fats to saponify and not just liquid to dilute it down.

Well, it doesn't zap and doesn't have that lye-heavy smell, so I think it's the milk. If I fail with the rebatch, well, I'll think of something else to do with it.

 

[Lin]

You called it a lye heavy disaster loaf, if it doesn't zap why call it that? I had the same thought that if it was lye heavy adding milk wouldn't be enough. But now it sounds like it wasn't lye heavy at all.

 

[Meltiongson]

I checked it week after i made it and try to zap test it again and it didnt zapped. But i still rebatch it because of its poor texture the soap breaks easily. My rebatching experience didnt go well but i think its a good start to try rebatching. My soap melted a little i just put a little liquid as what i have read from others that a little goes along way. But i think mine was way too little, my soap was lumpy. I tried to mixed it with electric mixer so i could break up the lumps but it didnt, it get worse. It didnt break up and the soap got harder. I put some liquid hoping it would help to melt it and waited for 30 mins and nothing happen. I just mixed it and toss it in the mold. Now im waiting for it to get harden. Btw, thank u for ur suggestions

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hope the finished product works out for you

 

[Meltiongson]

Hope the finished product works out for you

I hope so. Thanks

 

[Meltiongson]

Hope the finished product works out for you

I hope so. Thanks

 

[Obsidian]

Did you grate your soap or just chop it up? It really needs to be grated for rebatch and I use roughly 1/2 cup of water for each pound of rebatch. 30 min isn't really long enough to cook, I've had it take over three hours to completely melt back down. If you end up with lumps, a potato masher works pretty good.

 

[Tienne]

Meltiongson, if you're still not quite happy with how it turned out, you can always rebatch it again. There's no limit really to how many times you can rebatch the same soap... except for one's patience, that is. Practice makes perfect!

 

[Meltiongson]

Did you grate your soap or just chop it up? It really needs to be grated for rebatch and I use roughly 1/2 cup of water for each pound of rebatch. 30 min isn't really long enough to cook, I've had it take over three hours to completely melt back down. If you end up with lumps, a potato masher works pretty good.

I grate it and add 5 tbsp of liquid in 1lb of soap. i cook it for 2 hours. Too bad i dont have potato masher, i ended up with huge lumps and i had a hard time putting into the mold

 

[Meltiongson]

Meltiongson, if you're still not quite happy with how it turned out, you can always rebatch it again. There's no limit really to how many times you can rebatch the same soap... except for one's patience, that is. Practice makes perfect!

I agree. Soon i'll perfect it. Hehe. If i'll rebatch it again, does it change the quality of the soap? Others say that it would affect the its bubbles and creaminess.