Temperature

Katie68121 · Aug 6, 2020

Hi all,
Questions about what temperatures to soap at.
1. Lye solution and Oils/Fats I’ve read they should be around 120-130 F within 10 degrees of each other. But I’ve also read you can soap at a lower temperature. I watched one video and she made the soap with the lye solution and oils at room temp...?
2. Room temp. I live in a warm climate, typically with no AC the room will be 77-85 degrees. Will this affect the soap?
Thank you for your help and guidance.

shunt2011 · Aug 6, 2020

120-130 is way too hot personally. I don’t take temps. I melt my hard oils until almost all melted then just stir to finish. I then add my liquid oils. My lye is always room temp. If you want to take temp I would keep it between 90-110. My oils and butters are just warm.

Relle · Aug 6, 2020

There is a thread in the beginners forum on Monday - Controlling Temperature.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/controlling-temperature.80412/This question gets asked so many times - use the search engine and type in temperature and heaps of threads will come up.

atiz · Aug 6, 2020

Most often, the lower your temperature, the slower-moving your batter is. But how low you can soap will also depend on your recipe. If you have a lot of hard butters, you don't want them to solidify and give you false trace.
I would not worry about the temp too much. If you can press your finger to the side of your lye container and it does not burn, it's fine. If all your oils are melted, and you can again touch the side of your container, it's fine.

Katie68121 · Aug 7, 2020

Relle said:
There is a thread in the beginners forum on Monday - Controlling Temperature. I can'tell link as I'm on my tablet. I've added links in that thread about temperature. This question gets asked so many times - use the search engine and type in temperature and heaps of threads will come up.

Thanks, sorry I did do a search first, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. Sorry