Sweet almond oil making soap very hot?

[nighttrain123]

I'm making about 2 lbs of soap in block using:

30% palm oil
30% coconut oil
30% olive oil (virgin)
10% almond oil

3% superfat with 2:1 water to lye.

I soap at about 100 deg F. When I pour in the lye water it goes to medium to thick trace really quick in maybe 1 min.

My first batch I could feel was getting really hot fast in the block so I put it in the fridge and about 95% of it gelled still.

Next batch I put straight in freezer and probably 90% was still gelled.

Anyone know if sweet almond oil will make the process really hot? Is this the problem?

 

[shunt2011]

Sweet Almond oil has never caused mine to heat up to my knowledge. 30% CO will heat more than a lower amount. I would need a higher SF with 30% as well. I use 20-25% CO with no issues though. Palm will cause your batter to thicken quicker than say lard or tallow.

 

[Dennis]

I would use no more than 25% palm, 25% coconut, usually closer to 20% and up the olive to at least 40%. Superfat for me is usually 5-10%. I also use plain classic olive oil.

 

[nighttrain123]

Yeah many thx. I've upped the olive oil and will try that.

 

[Dean]

I currently soap with 40% almond, freeze (not refrigerate) and get no partial gel.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you're getting trace that fast, one thing is to check how much you're stick blending. If you're buzzing the soap batter for more than a second or two followed by hand stirring for maybe 15-30 seconds, you're SBing too much. I'd say this is the usual culprit with most soap makers who get unexpectedly fast trace. I know I should know better, and I still tend to over-SB when I make a batch after a long break away from soaping.

Another thing is your fats may have a higher amount of free fatty acids than you're used to. FFAs react very quickly with alkali, even without any stick blending. So if you're getting near-instant heating and super fast trace just by hand stirring the lye solution into the fats, the culprit may be one or more of your fats with high FFAs. The way to figure that out is to saponify a sample of each fat and see how the pure fat behaves when mixed with lye.

 

[nighttrain123]

If you're getting trace that fast, one thing is to check how much you're stick blending. If you're buzzing the soap batter for more than a second or two followed by hand stirring for maybe 15-30 seconds, you're SBing too much. I'd say this is the usual culprit with most soap makers who get unexpectedly fast trace. I know I should know better, and I still tend to over-SB when I make a batch after a long break away from soaping.

So I could be SBing it too much? I use it pretty intensively.

 

[DeeAnna]

So I could be SBing it too much? I use it pretty intensively.

The word "intensively" is a giveaway. Yes, if you use that word, you're using the stick blender too much.

When a soaper uses the SB a bunch, she's basically revving up the alkali and fat molecules until they stampede into a wild run. And then the soaper gets unhappy because the molecules are doing exactly what the soaper is forcing them to do. To avoid a stampede, you just want to ease those molecules gently along with a little nudge from the stick blender here and another nudge there.

To give you an example, I video taped myself making soap a couple of years ago and counted how many seconds I used the stick blender. Over the first 5 minutes or so, I stick blended a total of 10 seconds. I'd SB for 1-2 seconds and then hand mix for 15-30 seconds, SB again, etc. I got over 20 minutes of working time, admittedly with a high lard recipe ... but I was lucky in my early soaping adventures to get 2 minutes of working time also with a high lard recipe.

Not to say this is the One True Way to stick blend. It's just an example to show you just how little SBing is truly needed to get the job done.

This amount of SBing is pretty typical for me anymore. (Unless I'm rusty and then I SB too much too.) If I was making an uncolored soap, that's all the SBing I'd do before pouring the batter into the mold. If I use colorants, I usually buzz each color for another 1-2 seconds to make sure they're well mixed. But that's about it.