Amount of water

[orangetree71]

I'm making my first batch of soap on my own this weekend (after a soap making class), and I'm confused by recipes that specify a range of water to use. How do I know exactly how much water to use? The recipe I want to make says to use 13 -19 oz water for 3 lbs 2 oz oils and 7.4 oz lye.

 

[donniej]

A good place to start is twice the weight of the lye for water... so for 7.4 ounces lye, try 15 ounces water.

 

[chandler Trev]

IMHO run the recipe through SoapCalc to ensure correct amount of lye to the type of oils you are planning to use. You may want to change the percentage of water to 30% The default on SoapCalc is 38%. See how that compares to your recipe.

Have fun!

http://www.soapcalc.net/default.asp

 

[carebear]

it's much easier, in my opinion, to think of the water as compared to lye - so you are making up a lye solution of a certain concentration. I recommend about a 30% lye solution.

water as a percentage of the OILS makes no sense to me.

 

[c0ntrite]

To calculate the amount of water needed for a certain recipe, I decide the concentration of the lye solution based on the type of oils or fats used in the recipe. Recipes with higher percentages of soft oils will accept stronger lye solutions; recipes with high percentages (>50%) of hard oils or fats (such as palm, coconut and tallow) will need weaker lye solutions - i.e., a higher amount of water.

More info here: http://www.aquasapone.com.au/soapmaking ... edcp1.html

 

[orangetree71]

Thank you for the advice. I just found another way to calculate water - notes from my class that say to use 6 oz liquid per lb of oils.