separating soap

[Cheryl Larson]

We are making lye based goats milk soap. A batch made yesterday didn't set well. When cut oil came out and there were holes in bar. Any clue why?

 

[shunt2011]

We are making lye based goats milk soap. A batch made yesterday didn't set well. When cut oil came out and there were holes in bar. Any clue why?

Hello and welcome. In order to help you troubleshoot you will need to supply more information. Your recipe as well as your process would be of great help. It sounds like it may have over heated but hard to say for sure without more information.

 

[cmzaha]

Cheryl, I would certainly guess it overheated. Overheating can cause leaking holes to leaking caverns in soap and separation. If you used any honey or sugars it could very well overheat since GM will cause heating in soap. If you save all the leaking oil you can add all back in and rebatch your soap. It will not be pretty but usable.

Bars with the holes, depending on size of the holes and how much oil leaked out and your superfat may cure out to safe soap. If the leaking holes are large it is much safer to rebatch. A picture and recipe would help as Shari mentioned above.

 

[amd]

Not having enough lye can also cause the same effect. When I first tried masterbatching my lye and had no clue what I was doing, I wound up using about half the lye that I should have. The outside of the bar appeared fine, but when I cut it there were caverns of oil that poured out.