Super fast tracing CP

[Zwal]

Hi,

I have made a couple of batches to find my favorite formula, but the last few batches are tracing very fast, within a minute.

The formula I tried today: 35% olive oil, 25% coconut, 20% shea, 10% castor and 10% cocoa butter. The lye solution was 2:1.

My process:

1. I heat my solid oils till all is melted.

2. I add some eo to my liquid oils (room temp.).

3. I combine my melted and liquid oils.

4. I add my lye solution to my combined oils and stir blend it (continuously:shifty

5. Within 30 seconds i reach trace and it sticks to my blender.. Plus i see little stuff in the batch. They are lighter in color and are somewhat harder than the rest. Some of them are air bubbles, but others can be squeezed but feel a little bit harder.

I reckon my biggest mistake is continuously blend the batch, I wont do that again.

But I also wonder if adding my liquid oils(50%), at room temp, to my melted solid oils make the batch instantly too cold, hence solidifying my batch after adding the lye.

A third one is maybe the lye solution. I use a 2:1, I have a 1:1 stored. When I soap I add water so it reaches 2:1. Should I use a 3:1 ?

I also reckon that the eo I use could fasten the trace.

Most likely my fast trace is a combination of all these things. But I would love to have some advice from you guys.

Thanks in advance!

Zwal

 

[IrishLass]

Hi Zwal!

Any of the above either alone or in combination could have caused what just happened to you.

For what it's worth, when I soap with a high amount of butters such as what you have in your batch, this is the method I use that that brings me success (I use a 2:1 solution from a 1:1 master-batch, too, by the way):

1) I melt my hard fats
2) As my hard fats are melting, I place my measuring cup containing my 2:1 lye solution in a hot water bath to warm it up to lukewarm or just above body temperature.
3) When my hard fats are melted, I add my room temp oils to them.
4) Then I'll bring the overall temp of the combined fats to about 115F/46C before mixing my fragrance in and then mixing in my lukewarm lye solution.
5) I hand-stir the solution into the hot fats only (no stick-blending yet), and then when all has been had-stirred in, I test things out by giving my batter only one or two 1-second bursts of my stick-blender. If things look they are moving too fast, I hand-stir only from there on out. But if it looks like my batter is able to handle more stick-blending, I'll do some more, but only in short, 1 or 2-second intermittent bursts with hand-stirring in between. I never stick-blend continuously. That's a surefire way to burn out your stick-blender as well as put you in danger of ending up with soap-on-a-stick, the latter of which you just found out. lol
6) Depending on how my batter is acting, I either hand-stir to trace, or I hand-stir/intermittently stick-blend to trace, then I pour into my mold.

When I proceed as above, my high butter/hard fat batches stay smooth and nothing comes out of suspension, such as what sounds like happened to yours (i.e., the white lumps of stearic that dropped out of suspension).

This is just me, but my advice for this type of batch would be so soap a little warmer, either hand-stir more than you stick-blend, or just hand-stir only, especially if you are working with an ornery fragrance. Oh, and never stick-blend continuously!


IrishLass

 

[Zwal]

Ha IrishLass, thank you so much!! One more Q, should I throw away my batch? I made almost 2kg and used organic oils only, that would be such a waste

Or will the stearic spots react with the lye and result in usable soap?

 

[IrishLass]

I wouldn't throw it away. Until I started using the procedure above, I had my fair share of batches loaded with stearic spots, and they all ended up being perfectly safe to use after cure (if a bit unsightly, lol). You can always re-batch, too.


IrishLass

 

[Zwal]

True, and again - thank you so much for sharing your experience with me, appreciated a lot!!

 

[IrishLass]

Glad to be of help!


IrishLass

 

[jblaney]

Irishlass - I would like to try your method, but I never know how long to hand stir. I get the feeling if the batters starts getting thick from hand stirring it may be from false trace from the hard oils are getting cold. I have tried stick blending for just a few seconds and then trying to hand stir, but I got false trace once and now I'm on the fence about it. Any advice? Thanks!