How much water?

I'm very new to soap making, I did a soap making course and am getting prepared to make my first batch, lots of reading and getting equipment together. I'm beginning to get my head around the science of it. I'm currently looking at soapcalc and mms lye calculator. I'm confused about why it doesn't actually tell you how much water to use, rather you are given a range. How do you know how much water to use? Just start with middle of the range? Any help gratefully appreciated.

On soapcalc: after you click "Calculate Recipe", Click "View or Print Recipe". A separate window will open with your water, lye, and oil amounts. For a first recipe, I'd stick with 38% Water as percentage of oils amount. It's the default on SoapCalc. Good luck!

Thanks, much appreciated. I want to do the simplest thing for my first go

That was good advice from snappylama. Most of us here refer to SoapCalc's default of 38% water as "full water." Using full water will slow down trace for you and give you some time between when you first see trace and when the batter is too gloppy to get in the mold without accidentally getting air pockets, or being able to fully mix in your fragrance (and later, colorants too). So it's a great place to start until you sort of get things figured out. What kind of mold will you be using? If it's silicone, you may need longer than 24 hours before the soap is firm enough to unmold if you use full water. If you haven't figured it out yet, patience is a virtue with soaping. But you can whine to the rest of us -- we all understand!

Welcome to the addiction, it's a lot of fun around here.

Hi, thanks for the help. I'm using a wood mold which I will line, can I use baking paper? I'm in Australia and just need to check if terms are the same. I want to add one essential oil blend and one colour. I'm going to use the recipe we were given at the class I went to. How quickly after I first see trace does the essential oil and colour need to be added? Does the trace process continue as you're adding the colour etc? I guess I'm worried that I won't realise I'm at trace and not add things quickly enough

This is the recipe, does it look ok? I ran it through mms and it looks ok from what I can tell. I have dry skin, so prefer something not too drying.

Vegetable soap
280 grams olive oil
112 grams coconut oil
112 grams sunflower oil
69.40 grams sodium hydroxide
150 grams of water

I prefer freezer paper, but I've used a lot of baking(parchment) paper as well. It works fine.

I'd up the water a bit, if its your first batch. You could take it up to 175 to 190 gr of water easy. It will give you a little time to play with the trace. Lather isn't going to be super, but it looks like the cleansing is low enough to not dry you out.

If it's a recipe you're comfortable with, I'd say make it. There's enough anxiety during your first batch without adding more to it. The main thing is to get a batch done, learn how the trace looks, etc.

I've recently started adding my scent to the oils and stirring, before I dump in the lye. Just a lot easier, especially with troublesome scents. Then just mix a bit, and dump in your color. With one color, no swirls, it really doesn't have to wait till trace.

good luck, we're rooting for you.

Thanks for the advice and support....I'm just waiting for my thermometers to arrive then I'm ready to go

Make sure it is parchment paper, and not wax paper. One will work fine, the other...not so much.

And welcome to the addiction!

Thanks

I remember reading somewhere, it wasn't here, that a good way to line wood molds is with laminated sheets because they can be re used. I have a home laminator and some A4 sheets so guess I can do that. Anyone done this?

I can't help you on the laminated ones.(Yes, I remember it also, but can't find it.) But the process was similar to this, if I recall correctly.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROwJjJ-frg[/ame]

Thanks Susie, that's great

Yup, I do same as JB.

Welcome to the addiction, and we're here for you..just remember to be calm and breathe..you will do fine

Jstar said:

Yup, I do same as JB.

Welcome to the addiction, and we're here for you..just remember to be calm and breathe..you will do fine

Click to expand...

Thanks, that made me laugh! I think I've done a decent amount of research and as much as I'd rather use fragrance and colour in my first batch, I've been convinced that I should just do a very plain soap first up.

Hanging out for the thermometers to arrive!

Still waiting on thermometer......grrr.......can I ask another question while I wait? This is the recipe I'm going to use after I doubled it and ran it through soapcalc. Should I be concerned that the iodine is 7 above the suggested range?

Sorry, second question. Original recipe for 500g soap called for 150g water which seemed low according to your kind feedback I will go with full water but I also wanted to make a kilo bar. i doubled the oils and let soapcalc tell me how much water and lye to use. The water weight came out as 83grams more than just doubling the water weight in the original recipe. That makes sense to me because the original recipe was low in water

But I don't understand what soapcalc tells me that the size of my finished soap would be 1.5 kilos. Surely it should be closer to 1.1 kilos? Or am I just reading soapcalc wrong?

Thanks for your time

You've got 1008 gr of oils, 383 gr of water and the lye. Looks about right to me. Some of the water will evaporate during the cure, but what it's telling you is what it's going to be going into the mold.

I've never been a big fan of the INS and Iodine numbers on soapcalc. What it's telling you in the soap calc is that you have a lot of unsaturated fats and that your soap is projected to be on the soft side. You're pretty high in the recipe for olive and sunflower, which should make an initially softer bar and take longer to cure.

That's about right. I usually estimate my batch weight to be 1.5 times my oil weight. Not perfect, but close enough.

Cookie said:

Thanks, that made me laugh! I think I've done a decent amount of research and as much as I'd rather use fragrance and colour in my first batch, I've been convinced that I should just do a very plain soap first up.

Hanging out for the thermometers to arrive!

Click to expand...

Yup, plain at first is the best way, for a few batches..that way you will learn what the soap does, and how it behaves or changes when you finally start adding colors and FO's/EO's

Once you have it tackled, there is no end to the things you will be finding to put in your soap...{heh, check out the rest of the threads around here for all kinds of concoctions}

Glad I gave you a laugh..I'm here most days

Zippedy do dah!! The thermometers have just arrived. As soon as I've got the washing out of the machine I'm soaping! The kitchen is ready....

Thanks for all the advice, I'll let you know how I go

Enjoy!

Hmmm, that was a learning experience! Some things I did well, some things I did not! The things that didn't go well happened after I had mixed the sodium hydroxide, so it thought I might as well continue.

First of all, never assume that just because you usually have lots of olive oil on hand that you will when you want to make soap (note to self) I needed 560g and it turned out that I had less than half that so my recipe ended up being the attached, rather than what I originally planned. It's obviously not going to be bubbly or creamy. Silly, I thought I had checked olive oil stock.

Second, my digital scale died on me after I had weighed the sodium hydroxide. So my oil is weighed out on my regular scale, which is fine for cooking, but isn't suitable for soap making.

Third, my sodium hydroxide cooled really quickly for some reason. The coconut oil was already liquid because it had melted last week when we had a really hot day and hadn't solidified again yet. So I weighed the oils as best I could and heated them to the same temp as the sodium hydroxide mix. But they were both only at 58 degrees Celsius and I've read that both should normally be around 100 degrees.

On the positive side, I prepared my area and lined my mold well, and the coverings I put in place worked well. Mixing the sodium hydroxide in the water went smoothly and although it took awhile I saw light and medium trace. It was like a thick custard when I poured it into the mould. I wrapped it in a towel and put it in the laundry.

I'm kind of glad that I'm going away for a few days tomorrow so I won't have time to think to much about it, or obsessively check it

I guess because I wasn't able to weigh accurately it's going to be up in the air whether or not it will be usable. Should I leave it for 4 weeks to cure after cutting, or do you think it should be longer.

Thanks everyone I really appreciate all the help