Recipes from books and Soapcalc.net

[rjalex]

I'd like to try a recipe or two from a soapmaking book I just read.

As the author wisely notes she advises to put her ingredients figures through a lye calculator because as she says "typos happen".

I like and have used http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp for my first three batches.

When I input the recipe from Soapmakers Companion book, in which the author states she uses a 10% superfat, I never quite get the same Lye and water quantities (nothing too different but still not the same numbers).

On the calculator website I can change the superfat % (I liked using 3% not more in my first three batches), and I could change the percentage of water (but left it at the default 38% not knowing well how to change it).

Can anyone explain if there any "tricks" to use these recipes on soapcalc ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[judymoody]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking but here goes.

For water, I generally use a 33-34% lye solution which is about a 1:2 lye/water solution. This is a modest discount which is still manageable but produces a harder bar initially which can be unmolded sooner and warps less.

For SF, I would find 3% too low for my skin. I use 8-10%

It really depends what you're looking for with respect to cleansing/conditioning, etc.

 

[rjalex]

Thanks for trying to interpret my wobbly English

In my first 3 batches, with a recipe of my own making, I used Soapcalc with its default 38% water/lye solution and a 3% discount after reading about a similar recipe making a nice lather with no more than that.
The soap I made is still a bit soft after 4 weeks and very pleasureable but kind of borders on the "oily" texture and so was weary of raising the SF %.

What I was trying to say is that should I trust the recipes in Mrs. Miller Cavitch "blindly" or should I really double-check with the calculator ?

If the latter holds true, I had an hard time wiggling Soapcalc's variables to get the very same numbers.

I usually enter the total amount of oils, the water/lye percentage, the amounts of each oils as in the book's recipe and then let it compute the water and lye.

The numbers that come out are fairly close to the book but not very similar.

If my maths are correct, as I make small batches of around 1 Kg, 10 grams of oils are approx. a 1% of the fats and so even small numbers discrepancies make me nervous.

Thanks.

 

[Obsidian]

If you use soapcal and lower the SF, the water/lye amounts are going to be different then the recipe in the book. I would always run the recipe through a calculator and I trust soapcal.

 

[LanaBanana]

I like to reference the same book you are talking about. On page 246-247 (in my book) of The Soapmaker's Companion, she shows a formula she uses to determine the amount of lye to use and how to take a lye discount. I'm thinking that each lye calculator is going to vary a little from one to the next. The lye calculators may have built in buffers or they may have rounded their numbers differently and that may be why you are coming up with slightly different amounts. Some people have taken the time to make their own lye calculators in programs such as Microsoft excel. They use spreadsheets with their preferred calculations, SAP values etc. and they don't rely on external soap calculators...and before spreadsheets, I imagine that people used the written version and had to do a lot of math when coming up with recipes! So if you're really wanting to get to the nitty gritty and get a better understanding of how those calculations are made, you could use Ms. Cavitch's formula to see if you come up with the same numbers. I hope that helps.

 

[rjalex]

Thanks a lot. Will do !

PS: now home and looked for the formula you mention without success. It's NOT on those two pages in my edition. Would you be so kind to mention the chapter or some distinctive paragraph titles or something like it to help me find it ? Thanks !