I tried HP today ... didn't go in blind, I read everything I could find on HP, seemed simple enough ... "seemed" and "is" are obviously two different things! :?
I was looking to make a very basic soap, recipe I used is
32oz Lard (from a bucket, does not say hydrogenated)
11.1oz Water
4.5oz Lye crystals
all ingedients were by mass on a known good balance.
First thing that went wrong is I couldn't get trace. When I checked things out, I think my temps were too high when I combined, 125°F on both the fat & lye water mix. When it didn't trace after 10 minutes of power mixing, I figured I'd let it cool down some and mix again. It went down to 95°F and still didn't trace, looked like a too-thin white pudding mix. Not about to give up, I put the heat to it, "low" setting on my crock pot wasn't doing anything so I kicked it to "high". About 20 minutes, it started puffing up, I stirred by hand, it went down and got thick but I never got the oily stage I see so many pictures, I got some small white lumps as shown in the pic below.
I left it cook, mixing occasionally, then all of a sudden it got hard so I cut the heat off and tried getting it in the molds. I got one bar molded and then the mix was dry and crumbly. I couldn't do anything with it and still determined not to give up, I put the water to it, about 28oz (by that point I was beyond measuring, I just poured it into the pot and kept mixing with the heat set on "high".
What I ended up with was a somewhat sticky and stringy mess. Oh, I didn't add the extra water all at once, I kept putting a little in at a time while mixing trying to get the flakes and lumps into something I could use. The harder lumps turned somewhat clear, I had some suds going on too and when the free water was gone, I was left with a white paste along with the fairly clear lumps. The paste was sticky and stringy, if squashed, the lumps were very sticky. The mixture did turn loose from the crock easily but stuck pretty good to the stainless steel knife I was using to pack it into the molds. The lumps didn't pack well but I managed to get it all into molds.
It's been in the molds for about three hours now, not covered and it seems to be setting up slowly, however, there is a greasy film on top ... not much, just enough to transfer to my skin when I touch it. Before I added the additional water, it didn't "zap" my tounge but after handling it for about fifteen minutes with bare hands, it did give a little tingle on the skin, after the additional water and heat, still no "zap" and no more tingle on the hands.
Anyone have a clue as to what went wrong and why?
This is what it looked like before it went to the crumble stage before adding the additional water. The hard white chunks at the top are what the whole thing looked like about 15 minutes after that pic was taken.
I was looking to make a very basic soap, recipe I used is
32oz Lard (from a bucket, does not say hydrogenated)
11.1oz Water
4.5oz Lye crystals
all ingedients were by mass on a known good balance.
First thing that went wrong is I couldn't get trace. When I checked things out, I think my temps were too high when I combined, 125°F on both the fat & lye water mix. When it didn't trace after 10 minutes of power mixing, I figured I'd let it cool down some and mix again. It went down to 95°F and still didn't trace, looked like a too-thin white pudding mix. Not about to give up, I put the heat to it, "low" setting on my crock pot wasn't doing anything so I kicked it to "high". About 20 minutes, it started puffing up, I stirred by hand, it went down and got thick but I never got the oily stage I see so many pictures, I got some small white lumps as shown in the pic below.
I left it cook, mixing occasionally, then all of a sudden it got hard so I cut the heat off and tried getting it in the molds. I got one bar molded and then the mix was dry and crumbly. I couldn't do anything with it and still determined not to give up, I put the water to it, about 28oz (by that point I was beyond measuring, I just poured it into the pot and kept mixing with the heat set on "high".
What I ended up with was a somewhat sticky and stringy mess. Oh, I didn't add the extra water all at once, I kept putting a little in at a time while mixing trying to get the flakes and lumps into something I could use. The harder lumps turned somewhat clear, I had some suds going on too and when the free water was gone, I was left with a white paste along with the fairly clear lumps. The paste was sticky and stringy, if squashed, the lumps were very sticky. The mixture did turn loose from the crock easily but stuck pretty good to the stainless steel knife I was using to pack it into the molds. The lumps didn't pack well but I managed to get it all into molds.
It's been in the molds for about three hours now, not covered and it seems to be setting up slowly, however, there is a greasy film on top ... not much, just enough to transfer to my skin when I touch it. Before I added the additional water, it didn't "zap" my tounge but after handling it for about fifteen minutes with bare hands, it did give a little tingle on the skin, after the additional water and heat, still no "zap" and no more tingle on the hands.
Anyone have a clue as to what went wrong and why?
This is what it looked like before it went to the crumble stage before adding the additional water. The hard white chunks at the top are what the whole thing looked like about 15 minutes after that pic was taken.