Oil amounts vs finished prodct.

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Shalisk

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Currently I use 3lbs of oils and full water via soap calc, and I get monster bars that dont fit in the hand. I accdently made good size bars once but dont know how many lbs of oil it was (It was master batched split wrong) I wanna say it was 2 lbs,

My mold makes 11 bars at about a inch thick, anyone got any idea about how big the bars would be with 2lbs of oils? Or maybe have pictures of their bars that are about hand holding size?
 
The bars are only as big as your mould is and how wide you cut them, it has nothing to do with the amount of oils, you work out the quantity you need to fit your mould, fill it and then cut slices the width you want. If your mould is too large, width and depth wise make a smaller one and then work how much you need to fill it. You sound like your trying to work it all out back the front. What are the size of your bars that they are too big ? Mine are 1 1/4 '' thick and they are not too big.
 
With molds dimensions change depending on how you hold a bar. For example: My mold can hold up to 5 pounds and some change. I normally only use 3 pounds of oils, This fills the mold too much for my liking (When I cut them 1 inch wide) my 'batches' are based on per mold. 1 batch = 1 mold. So I /was/ using 3 pounds of oils, this creates bars that are 'too big' I am thinking if I cut it down so that I am only making about 3-3.5 pounds total and pour that in the same mold, it will be about the right size.

Size of bars is directly proportional to the amount of liquid you put in them.

If your mold holds 10 pounds and you pour 5 pounds in, your bars will be 1/2 as tall.
I am pretty sure i am making sense, maybe not. I dunno anymore im just confsed, all I know is that one time I poured in 'not as much as normal' and got perfect bar sizes after cutting them the same width I always did.

And what I mean by 'size determined by how you hold it.' a 1x1x4 becomes a (W,H,L) becomes a 1x4x1 if you turn it sideways :) I dunno maybe im just stupid ill sht up now
 
Or fill the mold full and cut the slices in half after you make the usual 1" slices...
If you know how full you would need the mold to be for the height of bar you want to slice, then fill it with water to that point, and measure the volume of the water (or use water to give you a rough idea of how full it would be with 2lbs oil)
 
The volume will change with different recipes because each of the oils have different densities. For example, one oz of oil will have a bigger volume than one oz of water. If you want to fill the mold the exact same every time, then you just need to fill to a certain line and put the left overs - if any - into another mold. Otherwise you can do the math by looking up the densities of each oil, water, and lye and figure volume to make the perfect amount. I hope this makes sense.
 
yes, the volume would just be the starting point of calculation, and you'd have to figure out the weight from there, sorry, I sort of left the matter halfway through.

Or you can just do the math. If you used 3 lbs and then use 2 lbs in the same mold of the same ratio of various oils, you will have a bar 2/3 the height of the bar using 3 lbs.
 
Lastly, I make my bars about 2.5 inches tall, I think that's a good size for me. However, what's comfortable for me is relative. If you could measure your last good bar, that's the height you want to shoot for.

Canadawn, that's only true if the exact same recipe is used. That statement would not be true if you use a different recipe with different ratios of oils because different oils take up different volumes of space even if they all are weighed out to an ounce each. It's a matter of oil density.
 
girlishcharm2004 said:
Canadawn, that's only true if the exact same recipe is used. That statement would not be true if you use a different recipe with different ratios of oils because different oils take up different volumes of space even if they all are weighed out to an ounce each. It's a matter of oil density.
Click to expand...

What wouldn't be true? I said in my additional post that the volume would be the starting point, and you'd have to consider the weight of each oil.
Density is exactly that....mass per unit of volume

Basically I think the easiest thing if you're using the same recipe is to figure out the proportional amount the bars are "too big" and then reduce the recipe to the same proportion (as I said above, if you think 2lb of a recipe was good and 3lbs of the same recipe was too big, then you want to use 2/3 the recipe amount) Run it thru soapcalc or similar to be sure it still all works properly.
 
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