Salt Help

[oh58ac]

Ive been making soap for quite a while now. I make cold process using 30% coconut, 30% olive, 30% palm and 10% castor. Great results in all my variations. I have several people wanting me to make a salt soap. The type that has the actual crystal in the bar not the brine type. My question is , do I just add salt to the soap at trace or do i need to change recipe to use salt? Also if I have a certain size mold and have a regular recipe will I have to lower amount of the recipe to allow for the increase in volume due to the salt. So basically I need the dummy's version on this . Thanks

 

[SaltedFig]

Just add salt to the soap at a thick trace (it needs to be reasonably thick, so the salt stays suspended throughout).

The recipe for salt bars are often much higher in coconut (with a corresponding increase in superfat), to ensure that the soap lathers in salty water.

I tend to add sugars in various forms (eg. by adding coconut milk as part of the liquid) to increase bubbles.

 

[Snowbell]

I’ve done both ways, regular recipe with increasing the super fat and full coconut oil with 20% super fat. Which ever way you choose to go watch that soap if your using a loaf mold. Mine took 2-4 hours to cut.

 

[SaltedFig]

PS. Yes, you will need to reduce your batch size, if you want to keep it all in the same mold.
Alternatively, make it once and work out how much extra batter you end up with (those can go into individual molds, which are a lot easier for salt bars - as @Snowbell mentioned, salt bars need cutting soon - I cut mine as soon as they are cool enough to handle ).

This thread has some recipes and great information!:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/what-do-you-like-about-salt-bars.72711/

 

[cmzaha]

It will make a big difference if you use 100% salt or 50% salt. I use 100% and no way would they lather nice with lower than 80% CO and 15-17% superfat. The percentage of salt will determine your CO percentage. Use fine or x fine salt

 

[oh58ac]

So basically, I need to drastically raise my coconut percentage while reducing overall batter amount to fit into existing mold size relative to my old recipe. If I use 100% salt amount to soap I need to reduce my soap batter by half or whatever salt amount I choose?

 

[cmzaha]

So basically, I need to drastically raise my coconut percentage while reducing overall batter amount to fit into existing mold size relative to my old recipe. If I use 100% salt amount to soap I need to reduce my soap batter by half or whatever salt amount I choose?

Nope, the volume will not change that much. Since I am not a chemist by any means, it took me a long time to figure out how much batter to make for my molds when doing 100% salt. My mold holds 60 oz oils when I make 100% salt bars I multiply my 60 oz by 90% and end up with 54 oz oils. It will still stack up over the top of the mold so it is not a perfect amount by I like my salt bars taller. I am sure it is not the proper way to do the math but it works for me and I need simplistic

 

[SaltedFig]

So basically, I need to drastically raise my coconut percentage while reducing overall batter amount to fit into existing mold size relative to my old recipe. If I use 100% salt amount to soap I need to reduce my soap batter by half or whatever salt amount I choose?

Most folk tend to talk about the percentages in relation to the oil weight (not the total soap batter weight), so cmzaha's salt bar, for instance, is 100% of the weight of the oils in salt. A common salt percentage is 50% (50% salt to oil), and at this rate it is quite lovely.

Having said that, I have made salt bars with a 1:1 salt to batter ratio, and they are really nice too, but the batter thickens very quickly (I have trouble swirling at that percentage). With that much salt you will get a bit of left-over, so you can reduce the batch size or just have some individual containers/molds ready for any overflow (you can add up the total volume of all of the molds and write that on your recipe - next time you use that recipe (or one similar) you will be able to calculate very closely how much batter to use )

If you are making a 50% salt bar (50% salt to oil), then you can modify your recipe slightly and still get lather (reduce butters, add some sugary ingredients, etc.), but if you are going really high in the salt amount, then yes, you will need the 80% coconut (or near to it) to get a good lather.