Ugh

[BrewerGeorge]

I tossed together what was supposed to be a straightforward batch of confetti soap with tea tree for my mother last night. This should have been a cakewalk: no swirls just TiO2 in the oils, pussycat tea tree EO in the oils, fewer oils than I typically use. Should have been...

I got the oils measured and melted, additives in the water. Then I decided to try pouring my 50% lye pre-mix into that water instead of a separate container while measuring it. So it turns out this was a bad idea. The solution is so dense that it's easy to misjudge and I ended up 10g over my target of 300g. Can't take it out, don't want to toss it and start over.

So I played around with soapcalc a bit to find that 10g would decrease superfat from 5% to 0% - too low. Played around some more with increasing oils a bit until I found a combination that would work. Adding 25g more of safflower only (so I didn't have to melt hard oils again) got me down to ~2% superfat while only changing the overall oils proportions by about 2%. Considering that 1/3 of the mass is trimmings of 5% SF soaps, the overall effect should be fine. It will be soap.

And I didn't start this until after 9pm last night. What should have been 20 minutes total into the oven was more like 90.

 

[cmzaha]

oops...I hate doing mistakes like that. I have certainly made my share over the years. At least on the bright side you knew what you had done so it was really only annoying

 

[DeeAnna]

The other aspect to keep in mind when you get into a sticky spot like this is the actual purity of the NaOH dissolved in your lye masterbatch isn't 100%. If the solid NaOH is 96% pure, for example, then a lye solution at a 50% concentration isn't actually 50% NaOH. It will be closer to one half the actual NaOH purity or 48%.

So your soap has another few percent of "hidden" superfat for insurance, exactly as if you'd used solid NaOH + water rather than a masterbatch.

I've had soaping experiences like yours -- sometimes Murphy just has to butt in and make my life miserable.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

The other aspect to keep in mind when you get into a sticky spot like this is the actual purity of the NaOH dissolved in your lye masterbatch isn't 100%. If the solid NaOH is 96% pure, for example, then a lye solution at a 50% concentration isn't actually 50% NaOH. It will be closer to one half the actual NaOH purity or 48%. So your soap probably has another few percent of "hidden" superfat for insurance.

I've had soaping experiences like yours -- sometimes Murphy just has to butt in and make my life miserable.

Yep. I thought of that when deciding that 2% was "good enough"

 

[Lin19687]

hate it when that happens.

I tried a rebatch and then drifted thinking of something else... it got tossed