leilaninoel
Well-Known Member
Hi All,
I'm trying again to experiment with lard. I hadn't soaped in a while due to adopting a cat and my fear of tripping over him while carrying lye water. Now that he has started to mellow out, I have in the past couple of months started soaping again.
Previously, I've had fun just messing around with different oils, adding fancy stuff to try out, but it wasn't a methodical approach. My fiance eventually (not any time soon, of course) wants me to start selling as a means to support the hobby, so I'm going to be a bit more dedicated in my testing and not getting so caught up in trying out all the different specialty oils. I even recently made 3 nearly identical test batches of soap except for one had lard, one shea, and one cocoa butter - those are curing now.
Now I'd like to try a "high" lard batch. I know many folks go much higher, but I wanted to start somewhere in the middle.
(Yes, I know that Olive Oil and Rice Bran oil are redundant - I love olive oil, I know the rice bran oil is more cost effective, but so far I prefer a mix over using only Rice Bran in place of Olive Oil).
Anyhoo. Here is what I have in the soap calc, and I wanted to get some opinions from folks if this looks balanced enough, and if you think it should be a slow-ish or fast-ish trace, etc. Also, I picked up some sodium lactate to play with - what usage rate would you use for a recipe like this? I've found the recommended usage rates for EDTA on SMF, but have been having trouble finding a specific percentage of total oil weight for sodium lactate.
Forgive all the questions - any and all information is totally appreciated.
I'm trying again to experiment with lard. I hadn't soaped in a while due to adopting a cat and my fear of tripping over him while carrying lye water. Now that he has started to mellow out, I have in the past couple of months started soaping again.
Previously, I've had fun just messing around with different oils, adding fancy stuff to try out, but it wasn't a methodical approach. My fiance eventually (not any time soon, of course) wants me to start selling as a means to support the hobby, so I'm going to be a bit more dedicated in my testing and not getting so caught up in trying out all the different specialty oils. I even recently made 3 nearly identical test batches of soap except for one had lard, one shea, and one cocoa butter - those are curing now.
Now I'd like to try a "high" lard batch. I know many folks go much higher, but I wanted to start somewhere in the middle.
(Yes, I know that Olive Oil and Rice Bran oil are redundant - I love olive oil, I know the rice bran oil is more cost effective, but so far I prefer a mix over using only Rice Bran in place of Olive Oil).
Anyhoo. Here is what I have in the soap calc, and I wanted to get some opinions from folks if this looks balanced enough, and if you think it should be a slow-ish or fast-ish trace, etc. Also, I picked up some sodium lactate to play with - what usage rate would you use for a recipe like this? I've found the recommended usage rates for EDTA on SMF, but have been having trouble finding a specific percentage of total oil weight for sodium lactate.
Forgive all the questions - any and all information is totally appreciated.