Today was clearly not a day for me to soap. I have no idea if soap can be used as verb but, blow it, I am going to do so. This tale of woe, this story of sorry, this party of pity actually has it's roots in yesterday. I had planned to make soap yesterday (Tuesday) and so on Monday I puts some oats onto soak ready to make oatmilk to be used for my water. When I previously made the oatmilk I soaked the oats in too much water so the oatmilk I used was very watery. Remembering that, this time I measured the water with greater care. Unfortunately I did not get to make the soap yesterday so the oats were left to soak for a day longer than last time and THAT is the first part of the trouble. On with the long sleeve garment, on with the apron, on with the gloves and safety goggles ready to go. When I went to drain the water content off from the oats there was not enough as a lot of it had been absorbed by the oats in the course of the extra day soaking. Rather than toddle off down the other end of the house for more distilled water, I decided to squeeze through extra moisture so I could get maximum "oatiness" out of the mixture. Certainly what I got was a lot thicker and cloudier than what I used last time and I am guessing it had far more unsaponifiables in it.
I measured out the palm oil, yup, all good. I measured out the coconut oil, yup, all good. Put the container in the microwave on a low setting to melt them so they do not overheat and set about mixing up my lye mixture. Time to make the lye mixture, still wearing safety wear cover plus now goggles firmly affixed in place. First, let me admit that I did not freeze the oat milk as the recipe I was following did not tell me to do so plus when I first made this soap I was not a member here and had never heard of freezing the oatmilk. I now know better but clearly chose to ignore my better senses. I start adding my lye to my oat milk in small amounts and it immediately turns an orange colour. OK, I know straight away what has happened, I have scorched the sugars in the oatmilk, and realise I should have frozen it before use. It's too late to turn back now so ever onwards. I have got no more than half way through adding the lye to the oatmilk mixture and the whole lot turns into a big lump of goo, yup, a big glob of orangey, sticky, globbiness (another word I am going to use, even if I did make it up). Hmmm, to late to turn back I figure now, I should keep adding the lye and maybe it will sort itself out later. So I am adding, mixing, adding, mixing and OH MY GOODNESS the hot flush from Hell hits me. I thought I was over the hot flushes and come out the other side of menopause but by jingo I was hit by a whopper. So I am standing there in all my safety gear, mixing this lye mixture, with a window and the door open and I have sweat running down my face and feel like I am about to spontaneously combust. I tried to soldier on but I am getting hotter and hotter to the point were I feel like if I don't cool down I am going to pass out so I had to take off my long sleeves. Phew that felt better back to stirring the lye. A minute or two later both my forearms start to itch like mad. I don't think I was splashed by the lye as that was actually a solid lump by then, I think my skin was becoming itchy due to the salt in the sweat drying on my skin from the hot flush but better safe than sorry, I washed both arms. Again, in hindsight, I think I am going to get myself a pair of those extra long washing up gloves rather than just those little latex ones in case that sort of thing happens again.
Now to measure out the rest of the oils... "Olive oil, olive oil, olive oil", I think to myself, skimming down the list. Before reaching olive oil on the list I had a thought "You know, I don't remember using that much coconut oil last time". When I checked I had measured out the olive oil amount for the coconut oil and had measured out 369g coconut oil rather than 28g coconut oil that was in the recipe! EEEEEKKKKK pull jug out of microwave. Luckily I had been melting the palm oil and the coconut oil on an extremely low setting and the palm oil was mostly still solid. I grabbed the chunk that was still solid and put that in another bowl and weighed that. Yep, I still had enough palm oil sitting around to make up the small amount that had melted and then used the liquid in the initial bowl to measure out the coconut oil and then put that new bowl into the microwave (on a higher setting this time) to melt. I am however left with a load of melted coconut oil mixed with a bit of palm oil. I can't simply put it back in the container as it is not straight coconut oil. It is currently sitting on my window sill firming up again. I am hoping that the coconut oil and the palm oil will set in two different layers, if not, then the dogs can have a drop each with their dinners over the next week or so. They will love that and it will do wonders for their skin and coats.
OK, I weighed out the rest of the oils with no great dramas and continued to stir the lye lump (can't call it a mixture at this point) in the hope that it might be usable if it does not go rock solid. The next bit goes well. I line the mould, the palm and coconut oil melt and I mix them with the other oils to cool down. Finally they are cool so I think I better be ready to work once I put the lye into the oils and.... yes, you guessed it...... I put my whole stick blender in there rather than just the stick end as I wanted it to be ready to use at a moments notice and it started to tip the bowl over. Oh Poop, or something similar, I thought to myself, but at least I did manage to catch the bowl so the only oil I lost was what was on the stick blender but it was still an additional mess I had to clean up.
Now I start to stir the lye in and prepare myself for some volcanic action but it was extremely disappointing as absolutely nothing happened. First I mixed with the spatula and then used the stick blender and it came together just fine. The lye lumps broke up and the rest of that went well. Sighhhhhh. Finally, something has gone right. A few drops of fragrance, still no problems. Double sigghhhh of relief and into the mould. Give the mould a couple of good taps on the bench and tuck it up for the night.
I have checked it a couple of times since then and all seems to be going well until a few moments ago. I finished the soap about 5 hours ago and I start to see this "stuff" on top. Yep, I had forgotten to spray the top of the loaf with alcohol and soda ash was forming already. Oh well, I have sprayed it now and put the soap back to bed for a while. I must say that it was nice and warm under that insulation, it was kind of inviting and I wished I could curl up in there as well.
After I finished my soap I had to finish rendering some tallow. One lot was all lovely and clean but the other lot was not quite ready. After lunch I kept looking at the tallow that was oh so white and clean and begging to be used and was very tempted to try a small batch of 100% tallow soap to see how would go. Luckily my better judgement took over at that point and I decided to stop and wait until tomorrow to make more soap.
Today was not a good day for soap making for me
. With the additional information, I'm sure you'll get some help with what might be going on.
