Replacing water with vinegar

[cmzaha]

I will once again mention the calculations for the extra NaOH required are Correct. If using 100% Vinegar for Water replacement the liquid requirement will be Correct. The problem comes in when using less than 100% vinegar as a replacement for water such as when using masterbatch at 50% as I do. The program still figures the NaOH correctly adding in the extra necessary amount no matter how much vinegar you enter in to use. Where the issue is even if you check the Liquid Discount Box it is not deducting the Vinegar from the liquid requirement. I know I mentioned this problem quite a while back and if I remember correctly it was fixed for a while. Angie and the developers will get it taken care of.

I never found the calculations to be off for the Lye requirements, and I use vinegar for all my batches.

They have done an outstanding job with this calculator, amazing me how Angie and the developers have gone above and beyond to include all the features people asked for.

 

[Kcryss]

I will once again mention the calculations for the extra NaOH required are Correct.

Agreed, the lye calculation is fine for vinegar, but not CA.

If using 100% Vinegar for Water replacement the liquid requirement will be Correct. The problem comes in when using less than 100% vinegar as a replacement for water such as when using masterbatch at 50% as I do. The program still figures the NaOH correctly adding in the extra necessary amount no matter how much vinegar you enter in to use. Where the issue is even if you check the Liquid Discount Box it is not deducting the Vinegar from the liquid requirement. I know I mentioned this problem quite a while back and if I remember correctly it was fixed for a while. Angie and the developers will get it taken care of.

Ah, that makes sense, especially since I don't use 100% vinegar. I do half aloe and half vinegar.

They have done an outstanding job with this calculator, amazing me how Angie and the developers have gone above and beyond to include all the features people asked for.

Agreed, this is my favorite calculator by far and the only one I use. I do use soapcal when playing around with oils because it gives the numbers right there ... no scrolling required etc. However, once I make a final decision, I use SMF for the actual recipe.

The bigger issue here is actually with CA and since I was using both, it was a combination of the two that caused my long cook time issue (I think).
According to the math DeeAnna provides on SoapyStuff, the lye calculation for CA is off. In the example I provided above, the SMF calculator was short by 2.25g and increased the water by 16.68g. Combine that with the water increase for using only half the liquid as vinegar and the water was a bit more than required on top of a 3:1 water to lye ratio.

I never selected the liquid discount option for CA as it is a powder not a liquid so that option didn't make sense to me. I see now that using that option decreases the increased water by a lot and would at the very least be a bit closer to what is needed. I suspect there was an assumption that the CA was a liquid (like a citrus juice).

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I don't have a dog in this fight, because I don't use Soapmaking Friend to create my soap recipes, nor do I have any particular input into how it is designed.

I am starting to recommend this calc to other soap makers because it does allow people to use additives like vinegar without having to deal with the math. If the calculations are not complete and correct, however, that's not good.

I really appreciate how responsive the developers have been. I'm certain it's been a daunting task to slog through all the features people have asked for, and the developers have done a bang-up job of responding to the challenge. This calc has the potential to have an excellent reputation in the soap making community.

@Mobjack Bay --

Commercial vinegar sold for cooking and household use is 5% acetic acid. About 1 fluid ounce (2 tablespoons, 1 ounce by weight, or 28 grams) of this commercial vinegar contains 1.5 g acetic acid.

1 oz by weight (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes about 1 g NaOH. 1 oz by weight (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes about 1.4 g KOH.

thanks DeeAnna!

My calculation, based on that information and an imaginary recipe that uses 100 g of liquid:
Acetic acid is 5% of the 28 g of commercial 5% vinegar = 5% of 28 g = 0.05 x 28 g = 1.4 g acetic acid in 28 g of vinegar
Which means that 1.4 g acetic acid neutralizes 1 g NaOH
For every 1 g of acetic acid I add when using vinegar, I should be adding an additional 0.714 g of NaOH
For the 5 g of acetic acid in 100 g of vinegar, I should be adding an extra 3.57 g of NaOH (= 5 x 0.714)

Happily, this matches the calculation using @cmzaha relationship (see post #52) —> 100 g of vinegar x 0.0357 = 3.57 g extra NaOH.

The NaOH is calculated correctly in the SMF calculator if I set the vinegar additive to 100 g for my imaginary recipe that requires 100 g of liquid. It also means that I was not doing using the calculator correctly when I was adding the weight of the acetic acid in the vinegar additive box. It makes sense now, but the calculator led me astray because it auto-populated the field with “8”. But, even then I should have suspected something was up because it wasn’t “5”. The info box in the calculator could state “add the weight of commercial (5%) vinegar you will use to replace water in the recipe” or something like that. If I select “liquid discount” for the 100 g of vinegar, the calculator does not tell me that I will need 5 g of water to replace the 5 g of acetic acid in the vinegar. Just as when adding a food purée, it’s up to me to know the water content of whatever I’m using as a water replacement. That’s fine, but again, it would help to have a clearer explanation in the information box.

For the soaps I made over the last week, I was not adding enough extra NaOH, which means my SF is higher than I intended. I start at a low SF, so it’s not a disaster, but I will do the SF calculation next and thank goodness it wasn’t the other way around... and, double thank goodness this thread came up now and not months from now. I also should have known to run through a hand calculation of the NaOH needed for the vinegar.

ETA: I wasn’t using MB lye for my imaginary recipe and didn’t catch that there’s another problem with the calculator. Thanks @cmzaha for mentioning that issue!

 

[cmzaha]

What I found it seems the calculator multiplied the CA by 0.45 instead of 0.624 but I could be wrong. Math is not my strong suit.. Since I do not use CA anymore I never paid attention to the calculations in SMF. I was just playing with this morning and this was what I came up with.

 

[Kcryss]

What I found it seems the calculator multiplied the CA by 0.45 instead of 0.624 but I could be wrong. Math is not my strong suit.. Since I do not use CA anymore I never paid attention to the calculations in SMF. I was just playing with this morning and this was what I came up with.

LOL, well at least you did the math to see what it was doing, I only did the math to show it was wrong.
Now I can't wait to make another batch with adding vinegar and CA back in ... hoping for that 14 minute cook time again!

 

[cmzaha]

Good Luck Kcryss

 

[Kcryss]

Good Luck Kcryss

Fingers crossed!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@Kcryss I don’t know if it matters for HP soap, but some experienced makers reported that using vinegar and citric acid together results in soft soap. It was not a lye problem.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/vinegar-and-citric-acid.76921/#post-795253

 

[Arimara]

What I found it seems the calculator multiplied the CA by 0.45 instead of 0.624 but I could be wrong. Math is not my strong suit.. Since I do not use CA anymore I never paid attention to the calculations in SMF. I was just playing with this morning and this was what I came up with.

As inspiring as it is to try to calculate this myself, I'm better off not using those additives until the calculator is fixed. My brain sucks monkeys when it comes to math now.

 

[Quilter99755]

@Kcryss I don’t know if it matters for HP soap, but some experienced makers reported that using vinegar and citric acid together results in soft soap. It was not a lye problem.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/vinegar-and-citric-acid.76921/#post-795253

They also used SMF's calculator which may or may not have had the correct amount of total liquid. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation. I have a better grasp on the math part of doing the calculations and will use that when I decide to use vinegar in my soaps. And for sure will do the math for CA until I know that SMF calculator is fixed. I'm trying to redo some of my soaps so that I have less SF due to hard water and pipe problems. This means all my use of CA was just making the SF back up to what it had been. Better late than never. I do hope that it gets fixed as I really prefer the SMF calculator for some reason.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

One person mentions using the calculator, but not the others. I wouldn’t rule out problems with CA and vinegar together just yet.

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree with @Mobjack Bay -- I suspect using both citric acid and vinegar can indeed cause bar soap to be softer. I don't know what people are doing when they use both, but if the "usual" dosage is used for each acid and they're combined together in one soap, that salt load may be too much of a good thing.

It may be (just a guess -- I don't have proof of this) that the total combined salt load should be kept below a certain amount to get the most benefits and the fewest disadvantages.

The effect of too much salt is really obvious in liquid soap. The viscosity (thickness) of certain types of liquid soap will increase as salts are added, but only up to a given point. Add more salt after that point is reached, and the soap thins out.

Some soapers report sodium lactate over about 3% can cause bar soap to have a rubbery texture. I haven't heard too much about that lately here on SMF, but this issue pops up occasionally.

 

[cmzaha]

I have never tried Vinegar with CA. I use Tetrasodium EDTA, Sodium Gluconate and Vinegar together with no issues.

 

[GML]

So I was doing some research on citric acid and have read various answers: What exactly is the purpose of using CA in soap?

 

[Kcryss]

@Kcryss I don’t know if it matters for HP soap, but some experienced makers reported that using vinegar and citric acid together results in soft soap. It was not a lye problem.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/vinegar-and-citric-acid.76921/#post-795253

Thanks Mobjack! The soap isn't soft once it actually cooks. Just takes forever and a day to get it zap free.

 

[Kcryss]

They also used SMF's calculator which may or may not have had the correct amount of total liquid. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation. I have a better grasp on the math part of doing the calculations and will use that when I decide to use vinegar in my soaps. And for sure will do the math for CA until I know that SMF calculator is fixed. I'm trying to redo some of my soaps so that I have less SF due to hard water and pipe problems. This means all my use of CA was just making the SF back up to what it had been. Better late than never. I do hope that it gets fixed as I really prefer the SMF calculator for some reason.

The math is actually pretty easy if you have a spreadsheet to do it for you. I'm still using the calculator for the actual lye/liquid, but I write both down before adding CA/vinegar. Then, I add one at a time.
I add the CA, get the grams needed (I use 1.5% ppo). Then I do the math =CA grams*6.24/10. So if I need 13.5 grams of CA, the calculation would be 13.5*6.24/10 = 8.42, then I add the 8.42 to whatever the calculator originally calculated for the lye.
Same with vinegar, although the lye calculation there is fine, so it's just a matter of increasing the original liquid by 5g for the 100g of vinegar (that's all I use for a 900g batch of soap).
For the liquid, I am just going to use the original stated quantity +5g.

I will be trying this out tonight and post the results of the experiment here.
Tonights batch will be = 13.5g CA, 100g vinegar, 9g SG. No other additives before cook. 900g batch and 2% SF after cook.

 

[Kcryss]

So I was doing some research on citric acid and have read various answers: What exactly is the purpose of using CA in soap?

It helps to decrease soap scum in hard water. Sodium Gluconate does that as well, but I've read several threads/blogs in which people seem to like using both. To be honest, I don't know that both are really needed, but the water in the Denver area is very hard so I'm using both ... I know, probably overkill ...

 

[GML]

I found this after I posted and it explains what you're saying.

https://www.ultimatehpsoap.com/post/soapy-science-citric-acid-in-soap-making

 

[Kcryss]

I found this after I posted and it explains what you're saying.

https://www.ultimatehpsoap.com/post/soapy-science-citric-acid-in-soap-making

DeeAnn has some info on her page as well and includes the calculations needed.
https://classicbells.com/soap/citricAcid.asp
https://classicbells.com/soap/chelator.asp
https://classicbells.com/soap/citrate.asp

 

[Arimara]

It helps to decrease soap scum in hard water. Sodium Gluconate does that as well, but I've read several threads/blogs in which people seem to like using both. To be honest, I don't know that both are really needed, but the water in the Denver area is very hard so I'm using both ... I know, probably overkill ...

Likely not. If sodium gluconate up's citric acid's effectiveness when it becomes sodium citrate, you're better off adding it.