Trace Issue

[CaraBou]

I just made a CP batch that I couldn't quite bring to trace. I stick blended on and off for about an hour, mindful of overheating the SB. Dropping the batter on to itself actually made a shallow divit rather than an elevated trace. I have read that some people don't bring their soap to trace (so they can play with colors), so I finally just gave up, poured it, and stuck it in a preheated 200 deg oven (which I then turned off and left the light on). My logic was that CPOP might help it firm up & gel quicker so I'll know sooner whether I really have a problem that I need to try to fix. The batter temp was about 86 degrees when I poured.

It is possible the batter has less lye and more water than it needs. I used a lye mix I premade a few weeks ago, and while I assumed I made a 1:1 mix, I didn't label the container so it might have been a 2:1 (water:lye) mix like I used in the last soap I made. I almost didn't even use the premix for the uncertainty it presented, and now I wish I hadn't. Two lessons learned there.

I am going out for dinner and will check on it when I get back.

If it isn't gelling or otherwise seem normal, can I send it into HP yet tonight, adding in 1:1 lye solution (or greater if needed for full [3:1] water) that has the amount of additional lye that would have been needed if I had started with a 2:1 mix? Or is there a better strategy for attempting a save?

Here is the recipe for an 800 g, 7% SF batch:
40% lard
20% OO
20% CO
10% SB
5% CB
5% Castor
218 g Water, 108 g lye (I added 218 g of premix lye solution plus 108 g water thinking I was ending up with a 2:1).
1/2 tsp alkanet root powder dissolved in 56 g Lavendin EO, added about 1/2 way through my total bout of SB'ing (thinking maybe the EO would assist trace).

TIA for advice.

 

[My Mountain Soaps]

i had that happen to me once as well, wound up burning up the motor on my wand mixer. But my recipe wasnt near as complicated as this one. Sorry cant help, just sharing in the misery

 

[CaraBou]

Yeah, misery does love company.

I'm gonna go for it, it doesn't appear to be setting up at all after 2.5 hours. Time to break out the crockpot. Something I read said you have to switch to HP, I deduce because there will be so much water. I better get going so I can get to bed at a decent hour!

 

[soap_rat]

Well, the cool thing is that alkanet has acted like a Ph indicator for me--meaning the batter should turn green when you add more lye, and it will turn purple/lavender (or maybe just grey) when the pH is close to correct.

Has it been lavender the whole time so far? Or green? (just curious since I'm not sure how it would act around active, but too little, lye)

 

[CaraBou]

It has been green (kind of a darkish blah green). It didn't change color when I added the new lye solution, but we'll see what happens now that it's cooking. It came to trace really quickly when I added the solution -- almost more like a sludge, which I attribute to the alkanet since it had kind of "clumped" the oils the first time around, and now it is just thicker.

It'll be interesting to see what I get in the end of this. Should I be so lucky that it turns into useable soap, I wonder about the fragrance. I went high on the lavendin originally because it was such a light scent. But after all of this time in unsaponified oil/lye mix, it would be a miracle to survive. I can always add more after the cook, I guess.

 

[soap_rat]

I think that if you want to, you can save the batch. I once saved an enormous batch. I learned the hard way that having big containers on a small scale leads to inaccurate measurements. It was an HP soap, with alkanet, and it was lye-heavy. How lye heavy? Who knows, my measurements were wrong. But after many hours of cooking I figured out I had a problem. So, I added a few ounces of oil at a time, letting it cook at least an hour before I added more oil (I also added water to keep it fluid) until it turned purple and passed the pH paper and zap test, then I added some more oil for superfat and called it done.

I still have some pieces of the soap, it's 2.5 years old. Still lavender in color, too.

I do think the lavandin will be cooked off, sorry.

 

[CaraBou]

Ok... It's molded. It is either a dark purple or possibly brown, but definitely not green anymore. It was relatively fluid when I scooped it into the mold, compared to my 2 previous HP batches. So it went in like a breeze and has a fairly smooth top -- finally, it stopped fighting me! And there was absolutely no zap, so adding more lye solution was the right direction. It is possible it is still low on lye, but it definitely looked like soap so at worst it could be extra superfatted and not give one tiny bubble. I shouldn't try to count my chickies yet so I'll stop there and update after work tomorrow.

 

[CaraBou]

Yeah soap_rat, it didn't have much scent left when I poured it. But I decided to cut my loses and not to add any more. Somehow I think this will not be my best soap!

 

[CaraBou]

Whaduya know? It's soap! And it's even purple with a hint of lavender scent!

 

[lizflowers42]

Excellent save!

 

[CaraBou]

Thank you :wave: It's a bit soft; I probably should have let it cook & evap a little longer. But it was time for bed and I kinda liked the low viscosity and smoothness.

It was super easy to soften the edges tonight with just my fingers - another plus! Hopefully it'll harden up with a reasonable cure.

 

[Ruthie]

Congrats! Your persistence paid off! Looks good, too!

 

[houseofwool]

I bet it will be fine, but the cure will be really long...

 

[Susie]

Wow, good job! I was thinking as I read that you would never be able to save that, but you really did a good job! I learned something new also.

 

[CaraBou]

I bet it will be fine, but the cure will be really long...

I was thinking of making a castille for next Christmas, but maybe I'll just count this one instead :lolno:

I am actually pretty amazed it smells as good as it does. This soap has already beat a lot of odds -- now one more hurdle in retaining that scent over the next few months (or longer)!

 

[roseb]

Yay! How does it feel and does it have good lather? I've never been able to get a purple color from alkanet. All I ever got was grey!

 

[CaraBou]

I've only used a soap ball from it, and there is some lather (whew!). But a week later I can still put a dent in the bars, so I won't be appreciating the full effect for awhile yet. But near as I can tell at this point (without showering), the bars are NOT scratchy. I hope this holds true, as it sure was simple to add the powder to the EO rather than infusing and straining a base oil.

As for the purple color, I'm really happy with it. It is about the color of grape kool-aid, maybe a touch lighter. But no gray about it. I'm not sure my photo gave it justice. It will make nice swirl color in the future. To get it, I calculated 1/4 teaspoon ppo (which gave me 0.44), then rounded up to the nearest quarter teaspoon (making it 1/2 tsp total). I didn't want to wait to infuse the oil with the alkanet powder, so I tried someone's idea of adding it to the fragrance (EO) about an hour before planned addition to the soap batter(it turned out to be more like 2). It was red-purple at that point, but quickly turned deep forest green when added to the soap batter. Stayed that way until somewhere near the end of the cook when I wasn't looking. Kinda fun to see the progression!