Soap batch went awry! Too little lye - can this be recouped?

[highnoon]

Hello all, I am new here but not new to soap making. I haven't had any issues making soap but took several years off and now have had all kinds of issues restarting. I would appreciate any help from your anecdotal experiences (if you have had this issue).

I made the following batch:
Ingredient Amount in Grams
Olive Oil 1840g
Coconut Oil 342g
Lye 169g
Water 394g

Lavendar EO (from Joanne Fabrics): .75oz
Vanilla EO(from Joanne Fabrics): 1.25oz

Total Weight 2745

The big mistake was that the olive oil was supposed to be 840 and not 1840g. I didn't realize until later.

Details:
Mixed lye and water at 100F and then added
at light trace, added in EO and perhaps over mixed with my stick blender? The batch started to rice and then volcano and I knocked it down in the pan. When it subsided, I poured into mold and 2 days later it is still soft, and no real later and greasy. To be expected based on 1000 grams extra of oil.

I have two questions:
1. Is there anything that can be done to recoup this batch? My research hasn't found a good solution for too little lye.

2. Any ideas on why this recipe would be ricing and volcanoing? I have never had this happen and think perhaps I was overmixing once I added in essential oils. I think next batch I will try hand mixing only with the oils at trace as it definitely appeared to accelerate to process. One other note, I had this occur in the past 2 batches I have made and can't figure the culprit. The other recipe was a double of the recipe above (with the correct amount of olive oil in it). Those bars aren't pretty, but the later seems ok, they passed the zap test too. I am wondering if I

Thanks to anyone willing to help me trouble shoot - I appreciate it!

 

[shunt2011]

You can rebatch it. Run your recipe through a lye calculator with the amount of oils you used to see what lye/water is required for that size batch. Then you can either grate your soap, chunk it up and put it in a crockpot and melt it down with a bit of water then add the needed lye mixture and stickblend it or stir it until well incorporated and no zap left. Put it into a mold.

 

[highnoon]

You can rebatch it. Run your recipe through a lye calculator with the amount of oils you used to see what lye/water is required for that size batch. Then you can either grate your soap, chunk it up and put it in a crockpot and melt it down with a bit of water then add the needed lye mixture and stickblend it or stir it until well incorporated and no zap left. Put it into a mold.

Thank you!

I have never rebatched so I will find a few videos on how too.

In my case the soap is so soft and oily, I won't need to grate, rather... smush!

 

[highnoon]

Did some calcs and going to try adding the following lye to water combo to hopefully save the batch. I left in a little superfat to hopefully remove the possibility of too much lye. I will post back once I get a chance and see what happens. This should be interesting because I made this soap with play sand in it for exfoliating

EXTRA FOR REBATCH

Lye 121
Water 281
EE 21 vanilla 14 lavendar

 

[shunt2011]

If it's already really soft, I would cut down a bit on the water. Also, sand is really really scratchy. I tried it once and tossed it. Was too much.

 

[highnoon]

If it's already really soft, I would cut down a bit on the water. Also, sand is really really scratchy. I tried it once and tossed it. Was too much.

It is soft enough that when I press my finger on it, it is like a very stiff, slighltly greasy playdough. the oils are very much visible on my fingers when I touch it as well.

I put in 1 tsp per lb of soap. So ... not sure if this will turn out bad.

Trying to decide if I should just scrap it. I am sure that some of the oils have been absorbed in the butcher paper so I can't accurately assess lye to oil ratio. Am starting to think that maybe I just cut the loss are restart.

Did you find a particular exfoliater that was less scratchy but helpful? How much did you use?

Thank you for the info on sand.

 

[lenarenee]

The label on the vanilla bottle says eo?

 

[earlene]

I have never had lavender cause ricing. Since from my understanding there is no such thing as vanilla EO, you probably purchased an FO from JoAnne's fabrics, but I have not used a straight vanilla FO either, and have no knowledge as to why that would cause ricing. Is this an HP soap? Volacanoing in an HP soap is usually due to too high a temperature for the recipe. Are you sure the OO is the only miscalculation you made? Are you sure you didn't mis-measure the CO? With so much liquid and so little lye, I cannot even imagine what would have caused the result you had.

I would agree that starting over from scratch might be the best way to go at this point. Although it probably could be saved, if you have no experience re-batching, it might be more trouble than it's worth.

 

[highnoon]

The label on the vanilla bottle says eo?

I should have been more clear. I was abbreviating for essential oil for each. However when I looked at each bottle they are branded "hello lovely" and the lavender is an essential oil, with the vanilla a fragrance.

https://www.joann.com/hello-lovely-...al-oil/16146391.html#q=Essential Oils&start=1

https://www.joann.com/hello-lovely-...nce/16146367.html#q=vanilla+fragrance&start=1

 

[shunt2011]

@highnoon - The vanilla is a fragrance oil, probably what caused the ricing along with not having enough lye. Those fragrances are generally for MP soaps. I highly recommend using fragrances from reputable companies who have tested them in high ph environments. The essential oil isn't likely the culprit but may no be 100% EO either.

 

[highnoon]

I have never had lavender cause ricing. Since from my understanding there is no such thing as vanilla EO, you probably purchased an FO from JoAnne's fabrics, but I have not used a straight vanilla FO either, and have no knowledge as to why that would cause ricing. Is this an HP soap? Volacanoing in an HP soap is usually due to too high a temperature for the recipe. Are you sure the OO is the only miscalculation you made? Are you sure you didn't mis-measure the CO? With so much liquid and so little lye, I cannot even imagine what would have caused the result you had.

I would agree that starting over from scratch might be the best way to go at this point. Although it probably could be saved, if you have no experience re-batching, it might be more trouble than it's worth.

I am not certain if it was ricing, or seizing. It may have been seizing because ricing almost looks (in the picture on this forum) like the oil is separating. But in my mix it was well emulsified, but looked like curdled milk / mashed potatoes. In a pudding consistency.

This was cold processed soap mixing oils and lye water at 100F each

I am 99.9 percent certain the rest of the recipe was accurate. I double check my measures and premeasure all before I start. In this case I double checked the incorrect measure I had written down (184o).

You point about so little lye and still getting the volcano effect in the pan I totally take. i.e. how can it be overheating with such a low lye to fat ratio? This is why I was assuming perhaps I over mixed the FO and EO, or perhaps they were helping to accelerate, thus causing the volcano.

I did check temps with my thermoworks laser thermometer, and then with a second stick thermometer because I was concerned the reading may have been off. But they were nearly the same temp.

 

[earlene]

Perhaps it is as shunt says, by using MP fragrances in CP that caused the ricing or whatever it was you had going on. But the fact that it did start to set up is a good sign. So you do have soap, even though it's got a really high SF. Have you tried re-calculating to see what your actual SF might be?

So when you say volcano, was the soap batter just sitting still when it started to volcano on it's own? Or where you stick blending at the same time as the volcano started? If the latter, it could have been that you were too vigorous with the SB. If the former, then I would say it was a true volcan0, but I am not sure why since it didn't heat and had so little water for the amount of batter.

 

[earlene]

Highnoon,

It looks like your original recipe was about 4.5% SF with a [30% Lye] concentration. But it turned out to be actually 45.7% SF, with a [30% Lye] concentration. That's a really high SF.

You could re-batch this one easily enough by adding more water and lye to make up the difference, depending on what SF you actually wanted.

If you want to keep the oils as is, which is fine, but will need a longer cure due to so much OO (not a problem, and will be a nice hard soap after about a year), then follow these instructions:


First determine how much additional lye you need to get the SF you choose for the resulting soap (use a lye calculator). This will change your resulting lye concentration because you will have to add at least the same amount of water in weight as you do lye, otherwise the lye will not dissolve. Your lye calculator will give your the result of your actual lye concentration. Potentially you could go as high as 10-15% SF with this recipe, I think and still be okay, but I would probably try for something around 6-8% SF in this situation. You can still maintain the same lye concentration, although I would probably go to maybe [33% Lye] myself, but it isn't necessary. The lower the lye concentration the more extra water you will have. More extra water will give your a more liquid batter, but it also facilitates the batter to heat up faster in the presence of the new lye, so that is something to consider.

Find & prepare soap molds that will hold the total batch weight: (over 3,000 grams of soap batter).

Grate or cut up the soap into very small pieces. Because it is probably too soft for grating at this point, I suggest cutting into tiny pieces. Put into a pot for either double boiling or that will go into the oven or a crock pot. I have used both the double boiler method and the crock pot method. Others prefer the oven method, but I haven't used it so can't really tell you what temperature to use for the oven method, but I expect it is a low oven temp.

In a crock pot, the temp should be low, and in a double boiler, you just want to make sure the water doesn't boil out of the bottom pot, and keep it at a simmer while heating the inner pot. You want to stir the cut-up soap while it softens to a liquid consistency. A table-spoon or two of water can help it become more liquid sooner, but since your soap is so soft to start with, you may not need any extra liquid.

Mix the additional lye with the water of at least an equal amount of water, otherwise it will not dissolve. When the lye solution has cooled you can add it to the melted soap, but this is when you could run into another over-heating problem, as the lye will heat up the mixture and you don't want to start with a high temperature soap batter, but it does need to be liquid enough to mix.


Additional notes:

For 8% SF, additional 118 gm NaOH is needed (just a guideline to what to expect, but you should choose the SF you want rather than me choosing.)

This will result in over 3000 grams of soap batter, which will be a lot of soap, but if you are careful in your measurements, it will be good soap, if you like olive oil soaps. Some people do not like Castile soap, so if you are one, this may not be worth it to you since it will be 84% Olive oil.

I would not bother adding any more scent to this soap if you don't have fragrances meant for CP or HP soap from reputable vendors. Don't bother with hobby store fragrances, as I have only seem them sell fragrances suitable for MP soaps or candles, although I could be wrong and some are out there for CP, but I have yet to see any.

 

[highnoon]

Perhaps it is as shunt says, by using MP fragrances in CP that caused the ricing or whatever it was you had going on. But the fact that it did start to set up is a good sign. So you do have soap, even though it's got a really high SF. Have you tried re-calculating to see what your actual SF might be?

So when you say volcano, was the soap batter just sitting still when it started to volcano on it's own? Or where you stick blending at the same time as the volcano started? If the latter, it could have been that you were too vigorous with the SB. If the former, then I would say it wasVIOCa true volcan0, but I am not sure why since it didn't heat and had so little water for the amount of batter.

I agree with your point on the soap, just really high SF soap (I hadn't tried to determine the SF % yet, only the percent to get the new rebatch to a 3 percent SF to give me a buffer). It was way more than 10 percent, which I think is the high end of SF. The original recipe in a lye calculator showed it was made with virtually no superfat. But add 1000g....

Volcano: It started after (my significant other) was SBing in the EO and FO. The stick mixer was on for a good period of time, say 15-20 ish seconds maybe, after adding in the OE and FO, but started thickening right away. I had walked away but when I came back I saw instant potatoes (lumpy), and said "stop mixing!" . Then it started to erupt and expand.

 

[highnoon]

@earlene

Very interesting and thank you for the detail in these options!

It sounds like I either have oil bars or I rebatch correct? No amount of dry time will make the current soap,... well soap? I also assume it could become rancid since it is too superfatted.

This recipe was one my wife had found and wanted to try, I have never made a castille soap and my recipes have tended to be more "kitchen sink" recipes than OO and CO. Meaning recipes with 6 oils/fats to get different characteristics. Since this was my first soap batch since before my kids were born (4 years ago), I have fallen out of my previous understanding of the use oils to obtain particular soap qualities. Sounds like I will need to buff up that knowledge (happy to take suggestions).

I will need to search a bit more on castille soaps. She might be ok waiting a year after trying a rebatch as you suggested below. However I am not going to "lye". I was concerned about adding in lye water to the rebatch because I wasn't certain how hot the mix would need to be to melt down to a usable consistency. May be a cool experiment for "soon to be soap on the ceiling) .

Point taken on the fragrances. I will need to buy some more from verifiable sources. I was looking at whole sales supplies plus and brambleberry.

 

[penelopejane]

I should have been more clear. I was abbreviating for essential oil for each. However when I looked at each bottle they are branded "hello lovely" and the lavender is an essential oil, with the vanilla a fragrance.

https://www.joann.com/hello-lovely-4-fl.-oz.-lavender-beauty-essential-oil/16146391.html#q=Essential Oils&start=1

https://www.joann.com/hello-lovely-4-fl.-oz.-vanilla-beauty-soap-fragrance/16146367.html#q=vanilla+fragrance&start=1

One is an FO. The “EO” says it is uniquely blended so I don’t think it is pure EO. I’ve seen lots of cases where the label say EO but somewhere else it says in 90% carrier oil etc etc (who knows what’s really in it) so very annoying and deceitful but they can obviously get away with it.

If you don’t want to add more lye throw it out. It will never be soap with the amount of lye in it now. Time won’t save it.

 

[highnoon]

Well I decided to go for it and do my first rebatch / repair. i ended uptossing 16 percent of the batch due to things i had put on the top of it. end of the day i discounted so adjustments were 84 percent of start.

mixed at 120f for each and it was like box mashed potatoes in no time. we will see if this one gets saved, or is destined for the bin.

Lucky for me i dont sell soap! this one was tough to beautify

Will take pics when i cut. thsnks for the help all!

 

[highnoon]

Picture of the cut before we let this soap rest long term. cleaning up the cutter already showed good lather so we have high hopes.

 

[Dawni]

I found myself more interested in the cutiepies in the pic, than your soap

 

[highnoon]

Agree! Life wouldnt be the same without them (despite the extra work! )