Back from a few days of socialising abstinence (NOT soapmaking abstinence
). I had decided to wait until some particular VERY weird HP batch would eventually decide to get hard enough after FIVE DAYS to be unmoulded. Let's not talk about it. Two of three of the small soap cubes got out of the mould mostly in one piece, that must suffice.
My soapy thing of today (well, rather yesterday), was that I by chance discovered that FFAs are a decent solvent for the brownish mud inside an oven. Let's
also not talk how I found out … Anyhow, I had had soap scraps dissolved in water (like for salting-out), and then added citric acid in excess, to precipitate the free fatty acids as an oily liquid. I smeared some of it onto the glass door of the oven, let it “soak” (one hour at CPOP temperature), and then it has become a lot easier to remove the stains by rubbing, scraping (with a ceran cleaner spatula), and (secret tip) rubbing with washing soda solution, that turns the FFAs into soap
inside the deposits, and makes them go off much easier.
View attachment 59996 Left half: still dirty, but already treated with FFA; right half already cleaned.
View attachment 59997 A whole new oven! (after also washing off the dirt between the glass panes)