How on earth is this still going?????
I probably shouldn't jump in here but I'll bite. I might regret it.
You seem to have trouble grasping the well known concept that high water soap batter achieves gel more easily than low water soap.
You seem to be saying the opposite is true.
Please explain this ghost swirl soap I made recently. The main portion of the batter was made with high water (but goats milk substituted for all the water). As we know, when goats milk gels it turns tan/brown. The small portion of the batter was made with very low water (milk). The soap was wrapped in a towel to encourage gel.
Using your theory that low water soap gels easier, please explain why the low water portion of my batch has not gelled, and remains nice and white, whereas the majority of the soap which had high water, has gelled and turned a tan colour
That's some pretty kool looking soap and a very tall order. Hope the heat didn't stay hot for too long to make it go bad in the future.
I'll answer your question like this. Low water soaps get hotter and saponify faster then medium and high water soaps therefore they come out of the mold much easier and faster. The rate at which they lose water is the same as medium and high water except they stop losing weight sooner - Not saying they are cured. They lose 2 weeks sooner then medium and 4 weeks before high.
However, in soap, their are 3 variables. Oil, water, and lye. Lye by
itself is safe to handle and is a stored form of energy. When water is combined with lye it allows for a heat transfer through a chemical reaction blah blah blah here.
Water molecules fill the gaps between lye and oil. As more water is added those gaps get larger and larger away from the heat source but it allows the lye to move more and more freely. This will tie in later.
Like all heat sources, the farther away from the heat source, the longer it takes to get hot. In that respect, low water gets hotter faster, saponifies more quickly and demolds faster and loses all of its weight about 4 weeks faster then high water. Their is another difference here also that I will get to later.
Higher water values do not nearly get as hot as 200 degrees as low water. Medium and low water values do tend to hover in the gelatinous stage together for a while but because the lye water is able to move around a little more freely it will not burn off energy as quickly as low water. It will not get as hot as low water but it does stay warmer longer because of the freedom the lye has. In other words, it is the same thing as putting your milk into a microwave for a minute on high. You'll probably have just warm milk. But if you put your milk in there for 10 on medium, Well you probably just spoiled your milk. Which is your case.
Getting back to the other difference that I favor. I perfectly well realize might or might not stay warm for longer periods of time, not hotter mind you, but for a longer period. I like to have my colors just bright enough but I prefer more oil with less water in the same volume of soap batter because right now I feel that more soap and lesser water means less weight loss a year from now. What that does in how it affects dragging away dirt, I don't know. I also feel right now that it will not dissove in water quite as easily. It does not freeze up on me and I don't get DOS. And don't ask me that question because I haven't experienced it for about 75 loaves.
Do you still say I am confused?
One more thing. I still stand on the fact of soap calcs are decieving. If I chose a different water:lye ratio all it does is decrease my volume. If you just go back and readjust your oil, your volume will increase and you will still get the ratio you want.
I will mention when I first started soaping I used the default 38% water as % of Oil (approx 25% lye concentration), and had a terrible time with overheating, separation, crackle in other words all things mean. When I saw a post from IL mentioning 33% lye concentration I changed to using 33-35% lye concentration. Lo and behold the hot gelling and separation problems stopped, unless I use a naughty fragrance, and I now have to force gel. My recipe will very seldom gel without some persuasion. So I find Water does make a difference in gelling.
I am sure some of you will remember the test of the Andalusian Soap with the lye heavy recipe and very high water. Scientific I am not, but by observation I think it was the high water that carried out the overage of lye in the soap creating a nice non zappy Olive Oil soap. I came to the conclusion because I ran a batch with a 33 or 40% lye concentration, sorry I do not remember for sure and I am at the parents so notes are home, my soap never cured out and 3 years later the piece I kept is still zappy. So I do not go with extremely high lye concentrations, I want the extra liquid in my soap during cure time.
Not really sure if any of this pertains to this long thread that I became tired of reading. But I still would Not recommend this read to newbies
A 50:50 water:lye solution is not necessarily a bad thing and can actually solve more problems then it creates especially with Olive oil.
I've only made it twice because of my 6 month waiting period.
Olive oil tends to resist so my first batch, I stick blended for about 2 hours and had to take breaks. My 2nd batch took about an hour so it was not a worry for too much lye. I just needed to make sure I scraped the sides of the bowl because the denser soap pushed the remaining lye water on the edges of the bowl. If I didn't do that it would have been poured on the bottom, edges and corners of the soap. Make it easier to break off. I unmolded the next day and have been waiting ever since.
38 oz OO
5% Superfat
.135 * (38 *.05) = 138 grams of water and 138 grams of lye.
Was actually very easy and is still looking very nice. By February they will be ready.
I was hoping to get the kind of OO that would eventually turn the soap green but I guess I chose the wrong kind.
Yes, I understand what you are saying. As stated in my first post to you... You want to fill your mold with the maximum amount of oils you can. But it seems no one else here is that concerned with it.
It makes a difference of a couple ounces of oil per pound of soap to go from 1:1 to 2:1 lye solution. That's not enough for me to concern myself with. I prefer to use more water for a variety of reasons, gel being one. Another is that I masterbatch my lye at 1:1 and like adding other liquids sometimes, milk and beer soaps are popular. I have worked with my recipes and can comfortably create the designs I want using 2:1 for most of them. You say you have the same fluidity as I do, but you don't actually know that. I don't want to have pudding, but I also don't want to wait and wait for trace. I don't always use 2:1. It varies with different recipes. I experimented and found what works best for me to get the results I want with each and every recipe I use.
Many of us have read Scientific Soapmaking, the book I assume you are referring to. Others still have actually been to lectures given by Kevin Dunn. His information is invaluable. However, I certainly don't recall anything in there about minimum water being the best way.
You say you are writing this for new soap makers, but in another post, you said you yourself are new. If it helps you understand, great. I gotta tell you tho, most people that decide one day that they want to make soap don't care to understand, study, read much or formulate anything. They want a recipe. They want everything figured out for them. There isn't anything wrong with that and there are plenty of recipes readily available to them. When people want to create their own, experimentation is part of the fun. It is also what teaches them what every little thing they change does to the final product. The soap community benefits from that because those are the people that know their product inside and out and can provide soaps that aren't an embarrassment to the rest of us.
As I said in my initial post, you do what works for you. Just accept what works for you isn't for everyone.
There was actually a period in between the two sentences that you thought I was saying that mine was the same as yours. lol. I had to look closely myself.
What I referring to was, however way you do it, you try to get a certain fluidity too!
I once accidentally superfatted 15% which was the same thing as an extreme lye discount. It was pretty fluid and it worked out really well. Couldn't you do that instead of using lots of water? Not questioning your method just asking about your madness. lol
You seem to be doing pretty well and I like that.
Oh yeah, He doesn't say it is best. He implies that it is just as good and should not be afraid of it.
It is from that point that I was able to put more oil in it and it has eliminated a few problems.
