I'm a dork, recipe review and help...maybe

MissLunaB said:

I just left the setting as is in soapee and didn't even touch the water amount....

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DeeAnna said:

Yes, I totally understand what happened -- you left the default at "38" water as % of oils" and that's what created the trouble. It's truly not your fault -- many soapers use that setting, because it's apparently kind of the traditional thing to do.

But if you want to avoid this kind of trouble in the future, stop using "water as % of oils" and start using lye concentration or water:lye ratio. Lye conc and water:lye ratio mean the exact same thing; they just look different.

Some simple rules to get you started --
Don't set your lye concentration any less than 28% (2.57 water:lye ratio) for cold process soap.
Once you see how 28% works, try 30% lye concentration (2.33 water:lye ratio)
Work your way up, a percent or two at a time to about 33% lye concentration (2.03 water:lye ratio).

See what you think about your soap as you use a little less water -- does it stay too soft? is it too firm? does it look nice? You'll eventually find a range of water content that you like. A fair number of soapers here on SMF use 31% to 35% lye concentration for most CP soap recipes, with 33% being very common. Still others stick with 28% and are happy.

And forget about the concept of "water discount" -- that's a phrase with really very little real meaning. I think this mysterious idea exists mainly to confuse and intimidate new soapers.

Focus instead on lye concentration or water:lye ratio and understand that tweaking these numbers a little higher or a little lower is just a normal adjustment that you may want to do to end up with very nice soap.

More info: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=530575

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The Efficacious Gentleman said:

Water amount isn't too tricky once you start thinking in "solution strength" rather than "% of oils" ways. (more on that later)

The amount of lye is fixed by the oils, we can state that and know that our lye amount is constant for a mix of oils in that sense. But water amount is more.........fluid.

If you have more water in a batch than last time, it will behave differently. Lye amount stays the same, of course, but changing how much water you use affects the outcome. If you want to swirl or not, if the recipe is mainly soft oils and you don't want to wait too long to unmould, if you want to gel or not - all of these are affected by having more or less water.

When it comes to different recipes, using the % of oils means that you lose that control. Certain oils need more lye to saponify, so if you always make 500g batches but have different recipes, with % of oils you will always use the same water amount but (big but) your lye amount is different as it is based on the sorts of oils. This will mean that your time for swirling or chance of gelling is changing each time, even if you keep the water setting the same.

If you use the solution strength, you can control the amount of water depending on what you want to do. Many people use a 33% solution (33% of the final lye water is lye, 67% is water) for most things, changing it to 30% (30% of the lye solution is lye, 70% is water) if they want more time to play with swirling. When making a castile, some use a 40% solution (40% of the lye solution is lye, 60% is water) so that things move along a lot quicker.

Remember, you amount of lye is determined by the oils, so the different solution strengths is only based on using more or less water in relation to the amount of lye. Using the solution strength option, even if you always use it at 33%, will give you much more consistent results than % of oils, PLUS it gives you an easier way to tweak depending on your goals for a particular batch.

Disclaimer - I'm drinking a brandy, but that did make sense when I re-read it.......

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