My FOs were very naughty which didn't help either.
I should clarify my opening statement, when i said I usually soap with water around 32% of oils. It's not that I use that to calculate my recipe my with. I always go for a lye concentration of 30%, which in my recipes tends to then mean that I am around water as 32% of oils. In this recipe, following some advice regarding trying to minimise glycerin rivers when using TD, I deliberately changed my 'usual' lye concentration, aiming for a water discount. Perhaps I did the wrong thing?
I thought water discount was the same as superfatting effectively, ie a larger superfat equals a bigger water discount? how else could I calculate a water discount?
Anyway - all else being equal with my recipe, the only thing that was significantly different was the lye concentration was heavier at approx 31.5%, and the water as a percentage of oils was 30% when it usually works out to nearer 32%.
Hi again KiwiMoose
Lye concentration is the amount of water in relation to the amount of the alkali (usually sodium hydroxide) you are using. Sodium hydroxide will fully dissolve in it's own weight in water, which will give you a lye concentration of 50%. We normally use more water than this, to make our soap smooth and easy to make, but a lot of the water we use at the start ends up evaporating away as part of the curing process (there's more going on than just evaporation, but for now, it's good to know that some water is lost to evaporation). The alkali, which has been dissolved in the water we've used, and chemically reacted with the oils and fats to make our soap and glycerin, remains in the soap in roughly the same amount as was originally added, just in another form (it has become the soap, so it does not leave during the cure like the water does).
So lye concentration is a way of describing the amount of water we are using to make our recipe (an increase in the lye concentration is a decrease in the amount of water used in the recipe).
Superfatting is a term used to describe the amount of excess oil in the recipe. For a hot process soap, it can literally be extra fat added to the recipe (a true superfat). For our cold process soaps, the superfat is more often calculated by reducing the amount of the alkali (again, our sodium hydroxide in this example) so that some oil is left unreacted (not converted to soap).
So the superfat is (for our cold process soap example) a way of describing an adjustment to the amount of alkali we are using in the recipe (a decrease in the alkali is an increase in the superfat).
It is best to completely ignore the water as a percentage of oils, as the two are not directly related to each other (the water is related to the alkali, to get the lye concentration, and the alkali varies depending on what fats and oils you are using - it is not possible to get a sensible water value from just the total oil weight, it must vary with the saponification value of each of the oils, hence the better use of the lye concentration or lye ratio).
From what you are saying, you have varied your recipe to add more soy wax? It would be easiest to work out what is happening if you can post your full recipe (with weights) and a description of the technique you used, but if you would prefer not to do this, then describing carefully the change that you made (to the recipe ingredients and your technique) might be enough to help work out how to help slow down this recipe a bit. I would also ask whether you are using the Golden Wax 415 blend that was talked about, or another brand/blend of soy wax (this may also make a difference).
So ... how much wax did you try, what oil did you take out and were there any other changes? (it's starting to sound like it was neither the temperature nor the water amount, however both of these can have an impact & it is also useful to know that little changes can compound - so an accelerating FO, with a bit of extra heat and a little less water adds together to speed up saponification/trace, if that makes sense?).
