Should I lower super fat on this and any other comment.

[gww]

SoapCalc ©	Recipe Name:	New Print Recipe

Total oil weight​ 20 oz​ Water as percent of oil weight​ 33.00 %​ Super Fat/Discount​ 5 %​ Lye Concentration​ 29.642 %​ Water : Lye Ratio​ 2.3736:1​

Sat : Unsat Ratio​ 47 : 53​ Iodine​ 54​ INS​ 153​ Fragrance Ratio​ 0​ Fragrance Weight​ 0.00 oz​

​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
Water​	0.413	6.60	187.11
Lye - NaOH​	0.174	2.78	78.83
Oils​	1.250	20.00	566.99
Fragrance​	0.000	0.00	0.00
Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook	1.836	29.38	832.92

#	√	Oil/Fat​	%​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
1​		Coconut Oil, 76 deg​	15.00	0.188	3.00	85.05
2​		Chicken Fat​	30.00	0.375	6.00	170.10
3​		Castor Oil​	5.00	0.063	1.00	28.35
4​		Tallow Beef​	10.00	0.125	2.00	56.70
5​		Lard, Pig Tallow Manteca​	40.00	0.500	8.00	226.80
​		Totals	100.00	1.250	20.00	566.99

Soap Bar Quality Range​ Your Recipe​ Hardness 29 - 54​ 44​ Cleansing 12 - 22​ 12​ Conditioning 44 - 69​ 49​ Bubbly 14 - 46​ 16​ Creamy 16 - 48​ 37​ Iodine 41 - 70​ 54​ INS 136 - 165​ 153​

Lauric 7 Myristic 4 Palmitic 23 Stearic 10 Ricinoleic 5 Oleic 35​ Linoleic 10 Linolenic 0

Additives​	Notes​
14g sodium citrate. tbs sugar

What problems do you forecast? What might I end up with? Would I be better with this recipe to lower the superfat to maybe 3 or lower?

Trying to use stuff I have on hand at about the rate that I have them though I admit to having quite a bit of chicken fat and lard and very little tallow and coconut oil.
Thoughts or advice anyone?
Thank you for looking.
Cheers
gww

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Looks fine. Are 5% a good value for lye discount? Hmm. Lye wise keep in mind that SAP depends on living conditions of the animals (what they have eaten, where they lived, how much outlet they had). Some 2% might do the trick quite as well, but with 5% you're easily on the safe side.
Considerable but not excessive linoleic acid – sodium citrate is a good idea (as would be an antioxidant like ROE, if at hand).

I'd say it's a lovely recipe! A vegan's nightmare, but when you have the fats at hand, it's a great way to add value to them. It is absolutely possible to cut down on coconut. With the creamy magic lard lather, the mid-chain FAs from tallow, and some sugar, you would still get good lather with less (down to zero) CO. I'd still recommend you to not leave out CO altogether all of a sudden. 15% is a good mid-point from which you can judge if it's worth tuning the recipe to ramp bubbly and cleansing/stripping up or down.

 

[gww]

Resolvableowl
Could not have ask for a better more thorough answer. I had searched the site and web on the chicken fat for the last few days and so only wondered about the superfat due to some mention of dos. I am learning a little and have seen several references wanting to keep the Linoleic10Linolenic0 values below 15 but do not claim any real understanding and so am thankful for your input.

I am sure all the fats were from meat industry raised animals as all mine end up as pets even if they give me nothing. I just rendered stuff cut off of things we eat. I do also have some armour lard still to add. Got two lbs of lye coming wens. and I will be back in business.

I had been making the lard coconut with 20% coconut and no sugar and even though I have only had eight days cure, I tried a couple of the bars with the bought lard ones being already rock hard and could tell a marked difference from my pure lard bars as far as lather goes.

It takes so long to cure correctly which I still don't have any that have even made a 4 week cure yet and so making in advance with chance of being fair bars is a good thing and I have so little money in it, I can give it to family like candy but would still like it to be useful to them and myself. I am retired and just trying to keep my hobbies cheap enough to be able to keep doing them forever.
I again thank you for taking the time to respond.
Cheers
gww

 

[gww]

Got this batch sitting in the oven and plan on checking if it can be cut around nine or ten pm. Made a new mold of wood and put a plastic store bag in it for a liner and I am curious how my size batch comes out in it. That is only a four or five hour mold time and it will be interesting to compare with my previous batches at that point.
Cheers
gww

Little mold I made today.

I pulled the soap out at the four hour mark and the top seemed fairly hard with no stickiness.

I pulled the bag out of the mold and it did hold shape though when I started pealing the bag down I could feel the soap being really mushy and soft. Thinking may be the top had went into gell and it had not went through the whole log but I am too new to really know.

Because I am impatient, I preheated the oven to 170 (lowest setting) and put the mold of soap in it. I will turn it off in a half hour and check in one hour and see what I have. I do have a log of soap with a tiny bit of sawdust imbedded in the top as my new mold must still have a bit of loose stuff attached to it. I kind of put this here as the typing will help my failing memory and thought pattern also and I plan on making more of this recipe if it seems to end up ok. Memory aside, I welcome advice or criticisms.
Cheers
gww

Well, I guess I am making square soap unless I shorten the mold or up the batter.

Probably still a bit soft to unmold but I didn't want to wait till morning and just hope it is fair soap in the end.
Cheers
gww

 

[AliOop]

Looks nice! You can help future batches to harden up faster by changing your lye concentration to 33% instead of just under 30%. That's also a more consistent setting than "water as percent of oils."

 

[gww]

AliOop
I made another batch and added ten more ounces of oils. I almost did that but was scared due to inexperience. I have been diverting a bit of the lye water and melting the sodium citrate and sugar and adding them to the oils and I was unsure of how much water lye needed to react with and did not know if I was cutting it close or not. I will do it your way from here on out. I did check it on my original batch and it took the water from 6.6 to five something and so I blinked.
Thank you for the advice and I will act next batch.
Cheers
gww
Ps Please always feel free to give advice or even call me a dummy on things I do. You only know what you know and I am new.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

SoapCalc ©	Recipe Name:	New Print Recipe

​

Total oil weight​ 20 oz​ Water as percent of oil weight​ 33.00 %​ Super Fat/Discount​ 5 %​ Lye Concentration​ 29.642 %​ Water : Lye Ratio​ 2.3736:1​

Sat : Unsat Ratio​ 47 : 53​ Iodine​ 54​ INS​ 153​ Fragrance Ratio​ 0​ Fragrance Weight​ 0.00 oz​

​

​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
Water​	0.413	6.60	187.11
Lye - NaOH​	0.174	2.78	78.83
Oils​	1.250	20.00	566.99
Fragrance​	0.000	0.00	0.00
Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook	1.836	29.38	832.92

​

#	√	Oil/Fat​	%​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
1​		Coconut Oil, 76 deg​	15.00	0.188	3.00	85.05
2​		Chicken Fat​	30.00	0.375	6.00	170.10
3​		Castor Oil​	5.00	0.063	1.00	28.35
4​		Tallow Beef​	10.00	0.125	2.00	56.70
5​		Lard, Pig Tallow Manteca​	40.00	0.500	8.00	226.80
​		Totals	100.00	1.250	20.00	566.99

​

Soap Bar Quality Range​ Your Recipe​ Hardness 29 - 54​ 44​ Cleansing 12 - 22​ 12​ Conditioning 44 - 69​ 49​ Bubbly 14 - 46​ 16​ Creamy 16 - 48​ 37​ Iodine 41 - 70​ 54​ INS 136 - 165​ 153​

Lauric 7 Myristic 4 Palmitic 23 Stearic 10 Ricinoleic 5 Oleic 35​ Linoleic 10 Linolenic 0

​

Additives​	Notes​
14g sodium citrate. tbs sugar

What problems do you forecast? What might I end up with? Would I be better with this recipe to lower the superfat to maybe 3 or lower?

Trying to use stuff I have on hand at about the rate that I have them though I admit to having quite a bit of chicken fat and lard and very little tallow and coconut oil.
Thoughts or advice anyone?
Thank you for looking.
Cheers
gww

OMG! I was about to post to ask if anyone had made chicken fat soap! Would like to know how it soaps so I can decide whether to make soap or toss the rendered CF.

 

[gww]

I have a feeling I won't know for a while cause of soaps long cure time though I admit to usually sacrificing one bar at about ten days cause I just can't help myself. I am not a patient person. I will try to post when that happens. Just keep in mind that I have no point of reference except maybe dial to check it against. When my daughters show up for thanks giving, they will know cause they have used others soap.
Cheers
gww

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Impatience is a widely spread vice under soapmakers. It is recommended to wait several weeks into cure. The background of this is to get a somewhat reliable guess of how the soap will be performing after months, in the hands of forgetful customers/presentees etc., and how quickly it'll use up once properly hardened up. However, it is instructive to “accompany” a soap batch through the early and critical phase of curing, i. e. testing how it feels & bubbles just after a few days (or as early as it is non-zappy). Nothing wrong with early testing, when you have a bar or two to spare. Just don't judge a soap by its “teenage” performance. Just be meticulous to let it dry up entirely after usage, since any extra water prolongs the early curing/drying process.

a log of soap with a tiny bit of sawdust imbedded in the top

Others make a huge fuss around scrubs/abrasives/botanicals/peelings. You've got that for free.

 

[earlene]

I am a patient person most of the time, but even so, I don't particularly like waiting a week for soap to firm up enough to remove it from a mold. Which is how it used to be if I made soap using the default soapcalc.net settings! Of course, that was without animal fats, and no palm either, so they were mostly soft oils, some cocoa butter & shea. I was a beginner, so didn't know about changing the default settings for soapcalc.

Once I learned the value of using less water and how to work the calculator rather than having it work me, I was able to unmold and cut soap sooner.

Nice mold you made. Good job on that. I also used to use plastic baggies to line molds when I was new sometimes. But I hated those wrinkles! I moved on to lining with parchment paper, then to freezer paper (shiny side toward the soap.) It's kind of an art to get the freezer paper into the mold perfectly, but with practice it gets fast & easy. That's my preferred method of lining molds, although I have tried a few other methods as well, such as fitting them with flexible cutting sheets (like a plastic mat for cutting veggies), etc. There are multiple ways to line a mold and each of us ends up choosing what best suits us.

Your recipe sure does produce a very white bar of soap! And it is certainly a mix of animal fats! I'll bet the birds would love all that if you'd just add some seeds to it (suet). Anyway, nice work!

Oh, and by the time Thanksgiving comes around, it will probably be quite nice for your daughters to try. If you have them help you with the dinner prep and clean-up, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to wash up using your pretty white soap.

 

[gww]

Earlene
I used freezer paper on all my previous batches inside of a shoe box. It worked good except the ends were less consistent in thickness and that was not due to freezer paper. I took art one time in school cause I thought I could float and then almost flunked the class. This is one of the reasons at this point in my evolution that I am starting out with just coming up with utilitarian type stuff. Will I graduate to better? Even I don't know that yet.

Here is my second batch and as you can see, I can not decide on what thickness I am going to like. the thin ones remind me of dial which I am used to and the thick ones seems to be more what the forum goes for. If I figure it out, I could use a ruler or even do better by eye but am indecisive at this point.

A bigger batch did get me away from square bars and fit the mold perfect.

I am now out of beef tallow and probably do not have enough coconut oil on hand to do another batch though I have everything else still. This one came out pretty hard and that was probably just due to more time in the mold by a few hours.
Thanks to all that have made all the helpful comments along the way. I know I am a bit of a dummy at this point and the comments did help more then you might think.
Cheers
gww

 

[cmzaha]

If you continue using chicken fat and lard I would up the lye concentration to at least 33% as long as the oils are fresh. My experience with chicken fat is it slows trace considerably, as does lard. I used to use chicken fat in soap when I was playing with pours that required a lot of colors such as a peacock swirl because it was so slow tracing.

Personally, I would lower the superfat to 2% add in a chelator such as Sodium Gluconate and sugar or preferably sorbitol. SG will help with soap scum and slow rancidity and Sorbitol with help with lather.

 

[gww]

cmzaha
I did add sodium citrate and 1.5 tbl of sugar but also did leave the 5 percent super fat. I am going to either have to go to the store or change the recipe as I only have about 3 oz? coconut oil and no beef tallow left. I will try 2 percent super fat and 33 lye concentration as was also mentioned by AliOop.
Thanks
gww

 

[AliOop]

OMG! I was about to post to ask if anyone had made chicken fat soap! Would like to know how it soaps so I can decide whether to make soap or toss the rendered CF.

I use it only in small percentages or it significantly softens my soap. It is nice for slowing trace, but I use a lot of lard anyway, so fast trace isn't usually a problem for me. But hey, if you have some, give it a whirl. You can always change some of your other oils to up the hardness factor.

 

[gww]

Going to try and put this together to night.

SoapCalc ©

Recipe Name:

New Print Recipe

Total oil weight​ 30 oz​ Water as percent of oil weight​ 29.33 %​ Super Fat/Discount​ 2 %​ Lye Concentration​ 33.0000 %​ Water : Lye Ratio​ 2.0303:1​

Sat : Unsat Ratio​ 46 : 54​ Iodine​ 54​ INS​ 155​ Fragrance Ratio​ 0​ Fragrance Weight​ 0.00 oz​

​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
Water​	0.550	8.80	249.42
Lye - NaOH​	0.271	4.33	122.85
Oils​	1.875	30.00	850.49
Fragrance​	0.000	0.00	0.00
Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook	2.696	43.13	1,222.75

#	√	Oil/Fat​	%​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
1​		Castor Oil​	6.67	0.125	2.00	56.70
2​		Coconut Oil, 76 deg​	18.33	0.344	5.50	155.92
3​		Chicken Fat​	30.00	0.563	9.00	255.15
4​		Lard, Pig Tallow Manteca​	45.00	0.844	13.50	382.72
​		Totals	100.00	1.875	30.00	850.49

Soap Bar Quality Range​ Your Recipe​ Hardness 29 - 54​ 43​ Cleansing 12 - 22​ 13​ Conditioning 44 - 69​ 49​ Bubbly 14 - 46​ 19​ Creamy 16 - 48​ 36​ Iodine 41 - 70​ 54​ INS 136 - 165​ 155​

Lauric 9 Myristic 4 Palmitic 22 Stearic 9 Ricinoleic 6 Oleic 34​ Linoleic 10 Linolenic 0

Additives​	Notes​
21 g sodium citrate 1.5 tbs sugar

No tallow and so here I come lard.
Cheers
gww

Ok
Four hours in the mold.

I have now officially used up all the fats I had rendered. All I have left is about a pound an a half of the bought lard and around 30 oz of castor oil. I did not have to use any of the bought lard and amazingly all the rendered fats and coconut oil ran out at the same time. Just enough of each except the tallow for these three batches.

Guess I am done for a bit. Thanks for the help.
Cheers
gww

Note to self. batch one pretty sure no gel, Batch two which was 1/3rd bigger and left over night, full gel I think, batch 3. also big and taken out warm in four hours, looks like center is gelled to about a half inch from the outside. If I know what I am seeing.

Ladka
I have only made mostly lard soaps of some kind. I did not really time it and I do little jobs not even stirring for a couple of minutes here and there. All I can say is out of the eight batches I have made so far except for one that thickened up really fast but I think was maybe due to low temps, they all seemed to be the same and if I had to guess, 15 minutes?. I did not notice the chicken fat change anything compared to the lard coconut oils or bacon grease, coconut I made earlier.

The two cold batches I made of liquid soap with the same ingredients and made the same way but with koh lye took longer and was a bit weirder.

I do not really know what is normal but mine all seemed to progress like was in my mind after my first pure lard bar.

This very last batch listed here may have even been quicker.
Hope this helps answer your question in some way.
Cheers
gww

 

[Ladka]

gww, you have 30 % chicken fat and 45 % lard, that is 75 % slow moving fats. How long did it take to come to trace?

 

[gww]

Ok, Change of plans. My little brother stopped by and he brought me 60 oz coconut oil and I still have the armour lard and six oz of chicken fat. So this is next.

SoapCalc ©

Recipe Name:

New Print Recipe

​

Total oil weight​ 30 oz​ Water as percent of oil weight​ 29.41 %​ Super Fat/Discount​ 2 %​ Lye Concentration​ 33.0000 %​ Water : Lye Ratio​ 2.0303:1​

Sat : Unsat Ratio​ 48 : 52​ Iodine​ 52​ INS​ 157​ Fragrance Ratio​ 0​ Fragrance Weight​ 0.00 oz​

​

​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
Water​	0.551	8.82	250.14
Lye - NaOH​	0.272	4.35	123.20
Oils​	1.875	30.00	850.49
Fragrance​	0.000	0.00	0.00
Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook	2.698	43.17	1,223.83

​

#	√	Oil/Fat​	%​	Pounds​	Ounces​	Grams​
1​		Castor Oil​	5.00	0.094	1.50	42.52
2​		Chicken Fat​	20.00	0.375	6.00	170.10
3​		Coconut Oil, 76 deg​	18.33	0.344	5.50	155.92
4​		Lard, Pig Tallow Manteca​	56.67	1.063	17.00	481.94
​		Totals	100.00	1.875	30.00	850.49

​

Soap Bar Quality Range​ Your Recipe​ Hardness 29 - 54​ 45​ Cleansing 12 - 22​ 13​ Conditioning 44 - 69​ 48​ Bubbly 14 - 46​ 18​ Creamy 16 - 48​ 36​ Iodine 41 - 70​ 52​ INS 136 - 165​ 157​

Lauric 9 Myristic 4 Palmitic 23 Stearic 9 Ricinoleic 5 Oleic 35​ Linoleic 8 Linolenic 0

21g sodium citrate and 1.5 tbl sugar.

I think I am going to let this one sit all night and cut in the morning and am thinking it will gel. I have no ideal if I like gel or no gel best.
Cheers
gww

To answer a previous question about chicken fat/lard and trace. From the minute I poured hot lye into my oils with much of them in solid form, it took 11 minutes to reach what I consider trace.

I am new though and so only have my standards right or wrong but always willing to hear constructive criticism.
Cheers
gww
Ps I used 3 ounces less chicken fat in this recipe then when the question was ask cause that is all I had.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Guess I am done for a bit.

I've already suspectet that you're not “done for a bit”!

 

[gww]

You sound like my wife who just made that same observation though maybe not in the fun way that your wink emoji implies.
Cheers
gww

I see I got a couple of ha ha to my last comment but the fact remains that my wife took one of my new jars of coconut oil away from me.
Cheers
gww

 

[ResolvableOwl]

To strengthen your discipline/self-control, or because she loves to use it for non-soapy things?