Thoughts on chocolate soap?

[Tara_H]

I'd love some thoughts and feedback on using this as a hot process recipe.

Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator - basic oil breakdown based on the recipe by @AliOop in the notes.

A few motivations behind this:

• I've never made a solid soap by HP and I'm curious to try.
• Some of the videos I've seen allow for using masterbatched lye at 1:1 for the initial cook and the balance afterwards in another liquid.
• I have some goat's milk left over that needs using up.
• I have a new chocolate FO that I'm keen to try but I don't know how it will behave.
• I'm keen to make a slightly more luxury/indulgent soap just for myself

I believe it needs extra liquid to compensate for what is lost in cooking? Not sure how much extra needs to be added though. Also I don't know if there's anything obvious I'm overlooking in terms of formulating the recipe for HP?

 

[ResolvableOwl]

You didn't explicitly ask, but the question about colour will arise sooner or later.

I still haven't had an opportunity so far to dissolve (dark) chocolate late into the paste (at the end of cooking/saponification, in exchange for part of the added cocoa butter). That way it'll add a nice brown colour without need to deal with cocoa powder, and the superfat will be mostly cocoa butter.

 

[Tara_H]

You didn't explicitly ask, but the question about colour will arise sooner or later.

I still haven't had an opportunity so far to dissolve (dark) chocolate late into the paste (at the end of cooking/saponification, in exchange for part of the added cocoa butter). That way it'll add a nice brown colour without need to deal with cocoa powder, and the superfat will be mostly cocoa butter.

Oh, when I was reading up on chocolate soaps in general I found your very comprehensive posts! But I'm actually all good colouring-wise, I have a mica that was sent to me as a sample which happens to be just the right colour for this. I'm hoping that if the batter is fluid enough (which I think adding the GM after cook will help with?) that I can split some out for a milk-coloured swirl in the brown. I don't want it to look exactly like chocolate, just to invoke general chocolatey-ness

Edit: ok I think I've found the answers to my questions after a bunch more searching. (Trying to convince myself to wait until tomorrow before making more soap!)

Recipe wise I think it should be fine, and the recommendation I found for the liquid is to use 3:1 liquid:lye. Barring anyone coming along and screaming stop! I'll probably try this in the morning.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

The recipe looks fine. Maybe sodium lactate might be worth a thought, for easier batter handling at the end of cooking (I have not much experience how much it really helps with HP, but for sure someone else has).
It is very difficult to precisely control the amount of water anyway (evaporation losses), and you'll have to “drive by sight” with your particular recipe, batch size and pot shape. With plenty of fast-tracing fats, your recipe is easy and quick (yet not too fast to complicate things). Expect the batter to become so thick that shaping/swirling etc. is difficult to impossible, don't be disappointed, you'll learn a lot. With my first HP soap, I was glad to get it out of the pot at all, eventually!

(Trying to convince myself to wait until tomorrow before making more soap!)

 

[Tara_H]

sodium lactate might be worth a thought, for easier batter handling at the end of cooking

Oh interesting! I didn't realise it has that effect in HP. I've recently started using it in my CP soaps to help with unmoulding so I have some to hand.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Unlike CP, where it increases speed of hardening, it is said to liquefy the batter after HP cooking. Purely anecdotal; I haven't tested this myself (by direct comparison). But it might buy you some viscosity margin for design escapades.

 

[Kcryss]

I think it will work just fine for HP. Your water to lye is fine for HP. I don't use SL, but I do add 1tbs Greek yogurt ppo after the cook to help with fluidity. I also use 1 tbs sugar in the lye water for added bubbles ... maybe I use too much? The hard part will be attempting to use the GM. If added during the cook, you'll really have to watch the temp to prevent the soap from turning brown. I add coconut milk after the cook but I wait until the temp has dropped to below 170/160 and warm it up before adding.

To use yogurt after cook, allow soap to cool to at least 180, mix yogurt with a an equal amount of warm water before adding to soap batter. Stir quickly with a whisk after adding.

 

[AliOop]

Looks like a nice recipe! Couple of things:

1. Color - your chocolate FO likely has vanillin in it, and if so, will turn the soap anywhere from tan to light brown. You can increase this coloring with cocoa powder, as suggested by @ResolvableOwl. Otherwise, be prepared for a rind that gradually darkens from the outside through the entire soap as it cures. At last you don't need to worry about your GM browning, since the soap is likely to be brown anyway.

2. Water: I personally don't like starting my HP batches with a 1:1 water:lye ratio. The batter is too stiff, and I get way more dried chunks on the side of the cooking pot. I think your small batch size would increase the likelihood of this happening. You either have to be disciplined about not stirring/scraping in the chunks, or you will end up the overcooked pieces that show up throughout your soap. Working with at least a 2:1 water ratio helps me avoid having quite as much dried soap on the sides that eventually seems to get scraped into the batter no matter how hard I try not to do that!

3. Sodium lactate does help with HP fluidity if added towards the end of the cook. As @Kcryss stated, make sure that whatever you add post, whether SL, GM, yogurt, sugar dissolved in water, etc., is warmed up. That will help a lot with fluidity, as well.

 

[Tara_H]

To use yogurt after cook, allow soap to cool to at least 180, mix yogurt with a an equal amount of warm water before adding to soap batter. Stir quickly with a whisk after adding.

make sure that whatever you add post, whether SL, GM, yogurt, sugar dissolved in water, etc., is warmed up. That will help a lot with fluidity, as well.

Awesome, thanks both!

My thinking was to add the GM after the cook in the same way that @Kcryss describes for the yoghurt. I was aiming for 1:1 for the cook, but consider me appropriately warned! 2:1 it shall be, I have the same problem when making toffee...

Is it reasonable then to think that the GM, SL, sugar (as simple syrup) etc (FO also?) could be mixed together and warmed as a single batch for adding all together at the end?

Looking forward to trying this now, it's good to have a reason to get up in the morning

 

[AliOop]

Awesome, thanks both!

My thinking was to add the GM after the cook in the same way that @Kcryss describes for the yoghurt. I was aiming for 1:1 for the cook, but consider me appropriately warned! 2:1 it shall be, I have the same problem when making toffee...

Is it reasonable then to think that the GM, SL, sugar (as simple syrup) etc (FO also?) could be mixed together and warmed as a single batch for adding all together at the end?

Looking forward to trying this now, it's good to have a reason to get up in the morning

Yes, you can definitely warm all those things together and add them at once if you'd like. Just be sure it is all stirred in well and quickly. You don't want the milk to cook before it is incorporated.

 

[Tara_H]

Lol, well I tried it!

It was pretty interesting and for the most part went according to plan, but it's a lot more work than CP! Also I didn't think to allow for the difference in size between my batch and the videos I was watching, so I think I overcooked the whole thing in the end

I was expecting it to do some vaguely volcano-like things, but it just sat there. I poked it after about half an hour and it was rather solid. I have some pH strips knocking around that I've never used for soap since I don't particularly trust them, but I tried it anyway and it showed around 7.



So, suspicious, but I checked a couple of my cured soaps that came out as expected, and the bit of uncooked batter on the SB which came out very high, so I gingerly did the zap test and got no zap at all.

So I went ahead with adding the after cook things, but they didn't really want to mix!


Did some SB and stirring and mashing as much as I could, then I mixed in the colour and fragrance (I'd set them aside in the hopes of maybe doing a swirl), squished the lot into the mould and called it good.



It's going to be the most rustic thing ever, more rustic than an old fella on a 40 year old tractor with his sheepdog on his lap. But it smells divine and it will be a luscious soap, and that's the important bit!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

First of all, great you did it! And thanks for sharing, so that you and everyone else can profit from your experiences. To quote (totally inadequately) Clausewitz/Moltke: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” You won't know what works and how reliable third-party advice is until you try it within your own kitchen.

HP recipes can be quite stubborn when parameters are varied. Guessing by the photos, you have lost quite some of the water. Probably you could/should have stopped cooking earlier. The 1+100 dilution test can help you to find the end of saponification (assumed you add superfat late with the FO). You can try to add water at a late stage of HP cooking, but it might be just as difficult.

What's disappointing for chocolate-me is the colour. It looks like meat rather than . Did you decide against your mica, or were you just way too cautious with dosage? Or are you relying on vanillin to do its dark brown magic during cure?

 

[Tara_H]

It looks like meat

It does indeed look like meat! Even more so after cutting

(Yum! )

I used the same amount of mica that I would for CP, not having seen any info to the contrary. But it has come out much paler than previously.

I actually made another batch right after with essentially the same method, to see if I could avoid the overcooking/drying problem.

It was somewhat better, but again the colour became much paler towards the end. I was testing out some micas which arrived today, in the hopes of getting a true red. I was happy with the uncooked batter:


But after the cook, and especially after adding the final ingredients, it became washed out:


On a whim, I decided to CPOP it at that point, and the colour seems to be returning already!

It's still in the oven now but I'm very curious to see how it comes out.

I think my hot process experiments may be done for the moment though, it's so much harder and more stressful, IMHO.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

It already looks much more even and malleable, you're learning quickly! Your mica at that concentration has quite some reddish hue to it. This might be helpful in case I can somehow persuade you to add actual chocolate. Cocoa tends to turn into a “cold” greyish brown – not the closest approximation to the rich, warm brown of actual chocolate. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between the reddish mica and over-alkalised cocoa.

Can't wait for photos of your next “prey” cut into rare steaks.

 

[AliOop]

Did you use 1:1 lye:water? Most HP'ers use 2:1 or 2.5:1 since the heat really does cause it to dry out. That's even more important as the batches get smaller.

 

[Tara_H]

I think the major problem is I was watching this video and expecting it to behave the same...

When in retrospect she's making immense quantities of batter so naturally the timeline will be totally different

 

[AliOop]

I think the major problem is I was watching this video and expecting it to behave the same...
When in retrospect she's making immense quantities of batter so naturally the timeline will be totally different

Bingo.