Water Discounts. Handholding needed!

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Appreciate the link. I read it and it sounds interesting. I usually soap with the lowest water you can use or maybe just a tad more. Often it has solved my freezing up problems and I find it contradicts, correctly, what several people have told me and I just joined a few days ago.
It has never occurred to me to soap at 2 water ratios.
Would you know how to find the pictures of what people sent in? I really would like to see them to get my own ideas when I do it.

I could but:
You have already shown yourself to be absolutely unteachable and beyond human help.
Therefore I will not expose myself to your highbrow contempt.
:evil::evil::evil::evil:
 
Lye will dissolve at 50/50 water:lye so I am not sure what you looked up on Auntie Clara's site, since she does not usually have wrong information I question what you were reading. You would need to have 4.5 oz of distilled water to dissolve 2.25 oz lye, and I do not recommend using 50% lye concentration, I have tried it with 100% olive oil soap, which traces very quickly, and was quite unhappy with the results. In soapee in box 3 check the second option (lye concentration) type in 33% which is a very workable lye concentration and a decent water discount. I very seldom get crackle unless I end up with a very hot gel. Your default of 38% water as a percentage of the oil weight is approximately a 25% lye concentration. One reason crackle happens with high water is the higher water the hotter the gel most of the time
Sorry I made an oops in this post. You can dissolve equal parts lye/water. I masterbatch my lye at the rate of 50/50 all the time.
 
Lye will dissolve at 50/50 water:lye so I am not sure what you looked up on Auntie Clara's site, since she does not usually have wrong information I question what you were reading. You would need to have 4.5 oz of distilled water to dissolve 2.25 oz lye, and I do not recommend using 50% lye concentration, I have tried it with 100% olive oil soap, which traces very quickly, and was quite unhappy with the results. In soapee in box 3 check the second option (lye concentration) type in 33% which is a very workable lye concentration and a decent water discount. I very seldom get crackle unless I end up with a very hot gel. Your default of 38% water as a percentage of the oil weight is approximately a 25% lye concentration. One reason crackle happens with high water is the higher water the hotter the gel most of the time

What else did you put in that Olive oil soap. I get completely different results when I make castile soap. I do use a very low water and I do it all the time. My range is 1 to 1.4 x lye and when I do castile soap I use 1 to 1.1 x lye ratio and it still takes so long I could go to the store, take a bathroom break, stick blend some more and still have time to pour? I put nothing but fragrance or essential oil in them with no color. Olive oil, in my experience tends to resist saponification very well and it will also resist turning into soap afterwards which is the reason for the very long curing time and sliminess.
I also question the last statement because I constantly see members saying the higher the water the hotter the gel. In your case you say "most of the time" but elsewhere when I read on the subject of gelling, as in last years ghosting challenge on this forum and on this auntie clara website not to mention books on the subject of gelling, they state completely the opposite.
The lower the water the hotter the gel - "if gel occurs at all" meaning a very SHORT gell phase or none at all!
The higher the water - the heat will be less (water has a cooling effect but at the same time it transfers heat like a heat exchanger) but the gel phase will occur and for longer periods of time which is what is desirable for color purposes. As the water increases the longer the gelling phase which accounts for longer periods of de-molding.
To sum it up~ My take on it is this "You can heat sand all you want but you can't make mud until you add water!".
That's just my thought on the subject and to me it pretty much explains gelling. No offense.
 
Simple!

This is my take on it!
If you want the lye concentration: Just write down the word “lye”.
Lye…
Then write “/”,
Then write “()”
Then inside () write water + lye
So you have -
Lye/(water + lye)
That will give you your lye concentration.
If you want the % of water, just write down “water /”
and water + lye inside ()!
That will give you your water concentration.
I don’t cook so parts and wholes to me are confusing.
 
You're confusing the way the calculations are done, I think.

The weight and type of fats and the superfat are the only factors that determine the NaOH weight.

The the amount of water is calculated based on that NaOH weight, assuming one chooses to use lye concentration or water:lye ratio.

If I change the lye concentration or the water:lye ratio, all I do is change the weight of the WATER ONLY. It does nothing to change the weight of NaOH or of the fats.

I also know from experience that soaping at 40% lye concentration or so does not necessarily cause rapid heating, so you can't make a blanket assumption that this is true. It CAN be true, but not necessarily. There are so many other factors that affect the time to trace and the rate of saponification.

For an example, look at one of last year's SMF challenges where we explored the use of a high-water, low-water technique to affect the color and overall appearance of our soap. Many of us found we had to add the more concentrated lye solution to the low water portion of the batter first, because it moved much slower than the higher water portion. This is the opposite of what you are thinking.

"And in addition, it can also solve in freezing"

“Many of us found we had to add the more concentrated lye solution to the low water portion of the batter first, because it moved much slower than the higher water portion. This is the opposite of what you are thinking. "

We were saying the same thing just differently.

Water moves the lye crystals around. More water can mean more area in which the oil is exposed to the lye. I can totally understand why you say it moved much slower then the higher water portion.
 
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