How long should HP soap take?

Hey there;

I searched the other topics to see if anyone has asked this question, but there are a lot of questions on HP soapmaking apparently. .

I've made my first-ever two batches of HP soap in a crock post this past weekend. Both times, it took much longer than I expected for the soap to cook--in fact, even after 3-4 hours, the soap had still not finished saponifying. Here's the first recipe I used:
Water 11.2 oz (28% discount)
Lye - NaOH 5.6 oz

Coconut Oil 25% 10 oz
Palm Oil 7 17.5% 7 oz
Soybean Oil 32.5% 13 oz
Olive Oil 10% 4 oz
Castor Oil 5% 2 oz
Neem Tree Oil 10% 4 oz
Total 40 oz

Second (all measurements in ounces, again):
Water 11.2
Lye - NaOH 5.513

Palm Oil 18.25% 7.3
Coconut Oil 18.5% 7.4
Olive Oil 57.5% 23
Castor Oil 5.75% 2.3
Total 40 oz

Both times, the soap bubbled up around the edges and toward the center, seeming somewhat translucent, not really gel-like. After about 30 minutes or so on low heat, gel stage seemed to begin around the edges, but never seemed to make it more than an inch or so in. The gel on the sides didn't zap, but the stuff in the middle did, so I left it on for two or so more hours. The soap began to dry out and become very light on the top and sides. After three to four hours of this, I gave up and glopped it into the mold and insulated it with towels so it could finish saponifying on its own. But I thought that was supposed to be unnecessary and that the process was supposed to be completed fairly quickly. Further, the lighter-colored soap crust does not mix back into the rest of the soap well--it really showed up in the neem soap.

So... what did I do wrong? Is it supposed to take longer than 4 hours? And how do I avoid the soap crusting?

Sorry this is so long. Appreciate any help y'all can provide.

Dont discount your water at all.

I stir my soap about every thirty mins just to make sure all is well and then it takes about 2 hours to get a zap free product. The reason for the full water is that you can pour it into the mold from the crock pot or whatever its cooking in. It is still thick, somewhere between thick cake batter and pudding, but its pourable. When you discount your water you have to spoon it into the molds cause the texture is more like a thick honey or peanut butter

Well, I am not the most experienced soaper, but I do favor HP so let's see what we can come up with. I didn't check your first recipe, I don't use soybean oil at all so I can't really help with how that should behave. 10% neem seems high to me, again I have never used it but I seem to recall recommendations for keeping that around 2-3%, I could be wrong about that one, tho.

I ran the second recipe through soapcalc and your lye seems fine but your water is too low. I know many soapers recommend taking a water discount when using a high % of olive oil, but you need that water when you HP. Soapcalc says your water amount should be 15.2 ounces, so that will account for some of the drying out.

You don't mention stirring the soap. As soon as I have soap "ocean" around the edges with a solid soap "island" in the middle I stir the whole thing, breaking up the solid soap and mixing it all thoroughly, scraping the sides of the crockpot as I go. After that I stir every 10-15 minutes until the whole thing looks evenly translucent. The soap will never look like a clear gel. Once it hits that stage, something between smooth mashed potatoes and vaseline, it's done. I turn off the heat and add my extras, coloring, scent, etc. Your batches are slightly larger than mine, I usually use 2 lbs of oils, but I cook mine in the crockpot on low and they usually take 30-45 minutes to cook. An hour at the most.

I think the cooking unevenly (or not cooking in the center) can be solved by lots of stirring, and the drying out hard crustiness is a combination of using more water, stirring more, and cooking a lot less.

HTH

That fits with some of the stuff I was reading elsewhere. Makes sense to use more water instead of less. And it really helps to have an idea of the time frame. Some of the sources I used for research made it seem as though the whole thing should happen in minutes, which was really confusing.

And yes, 10% neem is too high. Didn't hurt the soap, but it took hours for the neem funk to dissipate from my kitchen! Next time, I'll drop it to 7 or 8%, possibly lower.

Thanks so much!

I have never had my hp take more than 1hr, in crock on high, i never use more water than called for.
So this is what I do, have your oils warm in crock, then add your lye/water(at any temp, i do it as soon as I mix it), then sb til trace, then cover and let it cook, the outsides will start to gel and they WILL go towards the middle, when the island is gone, mix it all up and tongue test, if zap, cook for 10 more min, then test again, then add fo and plop in mold, band the mold on table to get bubbles out and smooth topwith saran wrap, or I use the shelf liner that I line my mold with, and questions pm me, it should nevre take 3-4 hrs.

Not sure if your crock pot is new but I have several that I use and have gotten them at thrift stores and most of them I need to put on high or it doesn't get hot enough. Check your crock pot and try high setting for a bit and see if it speeds up the process. I have several different recipes and they all usually take no longer than an hour and a half. Some people stir and some don't. I'm not a stirrer. I wait until I can see just about 1/3 raw soap peaking through the "island" and turn off the crock and let the heat do the rest of the cooking. I never discount the water and always use sodium lactate and the soap is very easy to work with. Hope this helps!

FOHoarder--yes, my crockpot is old. Takes a really long time for the interior to heat up and melt the oils.That is probably throwing things off.

So an interesting thing has happened with my last two batches of HP soap. I followed y'all suggestions and used the full amount of water (38%, as per soapcalc). I used a slightly different recipe, though:

Total oil weight 40
Water as percent of oil weight 38 %
Super Fat/Discount 5 %

Ingredient Ounces
Water 15.2
Lye - NaOH 5.415

1 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 25%
2 Palm Oil 10%
3 Castor Oil 20%
4 Olive Oil 10%
5 Canola Oil 10%
6 Jojoba Oil a Liquid Wax Ester 5%
7 Avocado Oil 10%
8 Sunflower Oil 10%

I cooked it for probably about three hours, doing a tongue test every 30 minutes or so and stirring. Got what looked like a lovely gel:
[attachment=1:1lhahe1c]0910121902_0001.jpg[/attachment:1lhahe1c]
When the zap was replaced by a kind of salty taste, I allowed it to cool a bit, added a bit of honey and my eo's, then put it in the mold and banged it several times to remove air bubbles. It was still very soft, so I didn't unmold it. Instead, I put it in my soap box with a wooden lid and a light covering.

The next day, I took it out of the box and noticed it was still kind of jelly-like. Let it sit for most of the day in the open air, during which it seemed to get a little firmer. Then I unmolded and sliced it: It is still somewhat soft and sticky and has a translucent, somewhat gel-like appearance. I'm hoping it will harden up, but this is not what I expected it to look like.
[attachment=0:1lhahe1c]0911122149_0001.jpg[/attachment:1lhahe1c]
Did I do something wrong? Have y'all seen your HP do anything like this?

No, I don't think you did anything wrong your soap will get a bit harder and more opaque with cure time, BUT... you changed a lot of things all at once! I think we all want to jump right out of the gate and make the best bar of soap ever, but sometimes simple is better. May I ask why you choose those oils, in that combination? What sort of soap are you trying to formulate, what qualities are you looking for?

You have a lot of very soft oils in your recipe, I am surprised it has firmed up enough to cut as quickly as it has. I personally keep my castor oil at about 5% (unless I am making shaving soap), usually anything over 10% will make a very sticky sweaty soft bar. Honey adds to stickiness, even very experienced soapers are careful about using honey. I don't personally use canola oil as it can contribute to DOS; your amount of canola is low but with so many soft oils DOS would be my concern. I have never used jojoba in soap, to me it is more suited to a leave-on product like a lotion rather than something that you rinse off, but others may use it and love it.

My advice (and please feel free to take it with a grain of salt!) would be to sloooooooow down and stick to simple basic recipes until you get a bit more experience and have a feel for the process. Simple soaps are great! Then you can gradually make changes and start adding in more exotic oils if you like and really learn what qualities each one brings to the party. Or... with a bit of a cure you may love this soap exactly the way it is!

I'm new to HP, but not to CP. I've been making soap for about a year--I finally got up the nerve to try HP. I'm trying to get enough inventory together for sale, and had read that HP was a little faster, at least in terms of water loss and hardening (of course it'll still take the usual 4-6 weeks to cure for optimal quality but I figure that shipping times will help take up some of the slack).

Normally I make regular CP soap (usually 25-25-25 percentage coconut-palm-olive plus castor and other moisturizing vegetable oils). The neem recipe was my first try at incorporating that oil into a soap (so of course, I used HP, a process I've never tried before. I do tend to jump into things feet first). I also make shaving soaps. This one is intended to be a shampoo bar--hence the high percentage of soft oils. I did add about 12 grams of Vitamin E in hopes of staving off DOS. Normally I use ROE for that, but I'm out at the moment. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Good points about castor and honey. Now that I think about it, my shaving soaps do have a somewhat less opaque appearance than my regular soap and typically take longer to harden up, even when I add salt to the lyewater. Perhaps it's the high percentage of castor in both soaps that results in a more translucent tone.

(edited to add) Also, thanks so much for the tip on stirring and time. That helped tons!

Thanks!