CP tracing super fast

I am soooooo annoyed right now. I have just made yet another batch of soap which traced really fast and I had to spoon into my silicone molds. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have made 6 batches of soap this week and the same thing has happened with 4 of them. When I hear people talking about stick blending for 10 minutes I am just amazed, I get trace within maximum 1 minute.

This is my recipe: Olive 50%, Palm 30%, coconut 15%, castor 5%, EO according to the default on soapcalc, 5% superfat. I have used 100% cow's milk for some batches, and the last few have been using the split method but adding milk powder to make 100% milk. I have used different EOs for each batch, including 100% peppermint (the best batch by far), eucalyptus, tea tree, peach, rose EO and rose FO. I know the rose could accelerate trace but really, that fast? And that doesn't explain the peach batch.

The last few batches I have been really careful to coordinate the temperatures of lye and oils to 100.

I tried a batch hand blending, no stick blender at all, and I was much more comfortable with the pace things went, and got it poured in good time. But it turned out sort of grainy and uneven colored and I thought it might be due to no SB. This last batch I used the SB, but really just maybe 5 very short bursts, and bang, it was too thick.

Is there any real advantage to using the SB except saving time? If not I will definitely be hand blending from now on.

By the way I am sorry ALL my posts are about problems! In fact I'm going to remedy that right now and post my one beautiful success from this week. Plain, simple, peppermint, smooth, lovely soap

Try lowering your temps to around 85 degree, 100 is still a bit warm. Personally, I can't use palm or it traces almost instantly no matter what temp I soap at so I've switch over to lard. In my opinion, in make a better soap anyways.
Besides speeding things up, the SB makes sure all the ingredients are evenly mixed so I'd use it if possible. I rarely have a batch take longer then 2-3 minutes to trace so for me, a slow moving recipe is one that traces around 5 minutes.
You can also try mixing only to emulsion then pouring, you don't actually need reach trace before you pour.

Hi Bhelen!

It could be a couple of things....

1) When stick-blending, are you blending continuously, or are you doing it in short, on-and-off bursts every few seconds or so? Whatever you do, don't do it continuously. When people say that they stick-blended for 10 minutes, it usually means they stick-blended in short, on-and-off bursts for 10 minutes. If you do it continuously, you're just asking for instant soap-on-a-stick.


2) Also- I could be wrong, but from the sounds of it, I think your palm amount in conjunction with your soaping temp might be a contributing factor.

I say that because I myself always get what looks to be superfast trace whenever I work with palm kernel oil and/or high stearic butters along with temps that fall anywhere below 110F while I'm soaping, but it's really not superfast trace that's going on- it's actually pseudo-trace.

In other words, my superfast trace wasn't true trace. I found out my batter was not warm enough for the palm kernel oil and/or butters to stay in melted, fluid suspension long enough for the heat-reaction of the lye to kick in and keep the fats from dropping too much below their melting points and precipitating out, which on the surface of things looks just like trace, but it's not. In contrast, when I keep my temps above 110F with those fats, things go much more smoothly and I have much more time to play before I need to pour.

The fact that your finished bars look grainy and uneven-colored reinforces my theory that pseudo-trace is a contributing factor at play here, for pseudo-trace causes what is known as 'stearic spots' in the finished bars. Don't worry, though, they are just harmless grains of stearic acid that precipitated out of the mix.

3) Your FO may also be a contributing factor on top of the above 2. Florals are notorious for causing havoc with trace (not all are troublemakers, though). I've worked with some that gave me instant, hard, soap-on-a-stick, faster than I could barely squeak out, 'Wha?", and others that behaved very nicely. Some peach FOs can do it, too.

Actually, any FO can cause instant soap-on-a-stick, floral or not. It just depends what chemical constituents are present in the FO.

And there's also a 'sweet spot' to be found and taken into consideration with FOs (i.e., some FOs behave very nicely at .5 oz ppo and/or with cooler temps, but turn nasty on you at higher amounts, and vice-versa). That's why I try to find and read all the soaping reviews I can on whatever FO I'm interested in buying before I actually make a purchase.

What I would do is get to know your formula first before adding anything to it. Soap it warm, and soap it cool, both without any additives. Once you see how it behaves unadorned, then you will be able to better judge what and how much additives it can handle.

Don't give up!

IrishLass

I second what everyone else said and add a fourth variable... did you heat and stir your palm before measuring it? It separates and needs to be remixed... you could be getting a lot more stearic than you're anticipating on those last 4 batches. That will speed things up.

Obsidian - I wish I could figure out how to pour at emulsion! It works sometimes for me but one time I poured too early and it separated, so I am nervous and tend to look for just the lightest possible trace. I need some serious practise. I will consider lard. The temperature issue is confusing if you compare your comment with Irish Lass'. I don't know whether to go a little hotter or a little cooler. Initially I was soaping at room temp, but when I upped the palm oil percentage it wrecked things. It's a lovely, conditioning soap but I just can't get the look right.

Irish Lass - yes, I am stick blending in very short spurts. I am confused about pseudo-trace. Surely if it was really pseudo-trace, the eventual outcome would be zappy, separated soap? My soap is turning out good, it just looks terrible. It either traces too soon or is full of unsightly stearic spots. I am suspicious about the EOs and FOs, because the ones I made with lavender, Eucalyptus, tea tree and peppermint did not move as fast as the rose and peach. Thank you for always giving such detailed, thoughtful answers to all my daft questions! And no way, I'm not giving up! I love it, I just wish I had a free schedule to make 5 batches a day and really improve fast.

Snappyllama - yep, I always melt down my entire tub of palm oil before measuring it out for a batch.

For some super-fast-tracing recipes, I go back to the old method and use a silicone spatula to mix.

It gives me five or ten minutes to work with the stuff before it traces most of the time, but one very high CO formula still traces in a few minutes at most when hand-blended.

I also use the spatula even for some slower tracing formulae; I find it restful to sit and stir the pot, watching the slowly assembling emulsion. Don't judge me, I already know I'm crazy.

bhelen said:

Irish Lass - yes, I am stick blending in very short spurts. I am confused about pseudo-trace. Surely if it was really pseudo-trace, the eventual outcome would be zappy, separated soap?

Click to expand...

Not necessarily, although it could happen (it depends on the severity of the precipitation and to what extent the lye has already reacted with the other fatty acids in the batter).

I made several batches of pseudo-traced soap before I finally figured out what was going on and increased my temps (to good success), and happily none of the pseudo-traced batches ever completely separated or ended up zappy. My batter stayed cohesive, albeit thick and somewhat grainy/ricey, and the finished bars, although zapless, always came out with a fair smattering of unsightly (but harmless) stearic spots.

Thankfully, things have changed for the better since I've been soaping warmer with those particular high-stearic formulas. No more pseudo-trace and no more stearic spots.


IrishLass

I will throw out another idea to consider. I agree with Irish Lass that pseudo trace (aka false trace) could be an issue. I soap with a high % of lard and I was seeing false trace occasionally when I wasn't soaping warm enough to keep the lard fully melted. What I've found to be helpful is to do a "split addition" of my fats. What I mean is this:

(1) Measure your solid fats (the palm and the coconut oil) into your soap pot. Warm them until the fats are just melted and are comfortably warm to the touch (100-110 deg F)
(2) measure out your liquid oils (olive and castor) into a separate container and set aside. Leave these fats at room temp.
(3) make your lye solution per usual. Cool the solution until it is comfortably warm to the touch -- meaning it should be roughly same temp as your solid fats.
(4) add the lye solution to the melted solid fats in your soap pot. Alternate short bursts of stick blending with plenty of hand stirring. Bring the batter to a light trace. The warmth of this batter will prevent the fats from solidifying and causing false trace.
(5) add your liquid fats to the lightly traced batter. Use the same short bursts of SB'ing and plenty of hand stirring to bring the texture of the batter back again to an emulsion or very light trace.
(6) do any fancy work and mold the soap as usual.

When you add the liquid fats in step (5), this will cool the batter down and slow the rate of saponification. At this stage, there will be enough real soap in the batter to keep it reliably mixed and emulsified. Ideally this will give you more time to do any fancy work you might want to do.

If you like this method, then try these variations and see if they work better for you:
Make the lye solution. Do not cool it. Add this hot lye solution to the melted solid fats. Proceed as above.
Melt the fats just enough to soften them, but not melt them completely. Add the hot lye solution to the fats to finish the melting process. Proceed as above.

Also, look at adding fragrance to the liquid fats in step (2), rather than adding the concentrated fragrance to the soap batter at trace (step (5)). Diluting the fragrance in the liquid fats seems to help slow things down. At least it tends to.

I should also add that if you can measure the temperature of the soap batter with a digital temperature probe, you will see some interesting and useful stuff. Right when the lye and fats are mixed together, the initial temperature of the batter will stay roughly constant or even drop a degree or two. If the batter thickens during this period, you're seeing false trace. As saponification begins in earnest, you will then see the temp begin to rise a tiny little bit. If your batter has thickened up due to false trace, you should now start to see it loosen up and become thinner. When the temp rises just 1-2 degrees F (0.5-1 degree C), the soap is going into "real" trace and it has made enough finished soap to keep the batter in a stable emulsion.

Wow, thanks for all these amazing suggestions! I love how helpful everyone is here. If I don't become an expert soaper, it's going to be from my own lack of dedication and practise, and not from any lack of information!

I am going to make another batch today. I will give the split oils method a go. I'm determined to crack this issue and will change one variable every day until I understand what's going on!

In addition to all the good advice you've received above, if I were you I might try different recipes. Try a castile. Does the same thing happen? As you vary the ingredients, what things change? You may get to the point where you say, "Aha, that's the culprit!" As for your bars that look uneven, I think I can help with that, here's what I've discovered. I believe that stick blenders don't mix as thoroughly as we think they do. There are also lots of variables, how large the batch is, how powerful the SB is, how much you move it around, but I don't think the soap batter necessarily gets to be a homogeneous mix. Now, this wouldn't work for you if things are moving as fast as you say, but once you figure out that problem, and you will, here is my solution to the unevenness. After you finish stick blending and are ready to pour, take your spatula and stir, making sure you scrape the bottom and sides and mix everything well, before you scrape it all into the mold. Since I've been doing this, I don't have any more uneven looking soaps. Oh, and congrats on your lovely peppermint soap!!! :clap:

Ok so for my last batch I changed two variables. I know I said I would change one at a time, but anyway. First thing was the recipe. I decreased the palm oil by 5% and added cocoa butter at 5%. The other thing was, and I feel so stupid for not thinking of this before, that I had been soaping with a lye concentration of 31.5%, which would definitely speed up the trace. This time I soaped with full liquid. Anyway, it was way better, both in terms of the trace speed (I poured at emulsion and it didn't separate) and in terms of the stearic spots. Let's see what happens on the next one, I will try one of all your suggestions each time!

Water discounting definitely makes a difference. When I do Castille and Bastille, I tend to use a deep discount to speed things up. Even I don't like to hand stir for three to four hours (and I pull out the stick blender in this case as well).

Don't try that with a recipe high in hard oils most of the time, though. It's asking for trouble as trace accelerates.

I think the sole exception is a plumeria FO my mother likes. There I use full water as the FO accelerates trace dramatically and the excess water keeps things from turning to soap on a stick.