Ricing and not tracing

[KimT2au]

Hi, .I am having mosf unproductive and snnoyannday at soap making. I am attaching some photos and hopefully a video of a batch that keeps ricing and will not stay at trace. This is the fourth time I have made this recipe and there are three things that have changed. This batch is smaller, I ran out of master batched lye so the lye I mixed was pretty warm instead of room temperature and finally I had previously used Dutch cocoa to colour but had run out and had used regular cocoa. The fragrance was the same but obviously less of it. I have been SB for so long my soaping SB was too hot to use (yes, I had been pulsing it). I then started to use my household SB, when that got too hot to use I went back to my soaping SB. it looks like you are at trace but the minute I stop blending the mix goes runny again. I am hoping the photos and video ( if I can upload it) shows what's happening. Ok, can't upload video, only pictures.

 

[cmzaha]

It does not look like ricing but separation. Are you sure your lye is okay and you used NaOH not KOH?

 

[KimT2au]

Yes, is definitely NaOH. I had intended to cpop batch anyway and as I had been mixing for at least 30 minutes, maybe longer. Also this was my 2nd mystery/annoyance of the day so I decided to solve the situation by popping it in the croc pot and making it a HP soap, which worked . I then ensured I would do no more soap making today by making this .I have told the family dinner will be ready when it's on the table. No one is arguing with me

 

[penelopejane]

What is your recipe? Including water and NaOH?

 

[shunt2011]

You will need to share your recipe and process. Something else is up if you've used the same recipe and fragrance with no issues previously. What kind of cocoa doesn't matter, I use both quite frequently with no issue. And I agree with Carolyn, looks like separation not ricing.

 

[KimT2au]

I found the answer When I went into soapmaking friend lye calculator (which I adore, by the way) I managed to switch off the master batch lye button so the batch only got half the lye it needed. I am going to sit down and work out how much lye is missing. Make a fresh batch the same size etc but incorporating the missing lye from the first batch, mash down the first batch and combine it with a fresh batch and process the lot as hot process and that should fix the issue. Yippee. I am so pleased as I just could not figure out what had gone wrong.

Edit: I have made the second batch and incorporated the first and all seems to have gone well. I hope to upload photos of the rebatch shortly.