need your help re lye pockets

I soaped three batches over the weekend. I've had no issues with this prior, and I'm stumped as to what's happened.

Batch #1, I dissolved 134 g of lye (4.73 oz but I used grams because my scale does increments of .05 in oz, So I rounded down & used gr), into 5.8 oz water. I used the rest of my bb lye flakes and used Roebic from Lowe's for the first time. Stirred, made sure it dissolved. Added it to cooled fats and oils when the lye water had cooled significantly. It also developed the typical white floaties all over it.
Then I threw in 5.8 oz cold heavy cream. It false traced (the CO I believe, but I had tallow and Shea so could've been those). I put it on a low burner to remelt, and it reliquified fast, removed from the low heat and SB to "almost" trace. Split, colored scented. Poured, a tiny bottom layer, added flax seeds, SB to thicken and added the blue layer fully. SB to thicken the naked layer, and finished.,34 oz oils and 5% SF not to mention the cream btw.
Now I have these white spots in it. They don't zap BUT if I scrape the layer of soap down and get right up on the origin of the white, they most definitely zap. Lye crystals undissolved and I know I dissolved it! Look at the second pic. The right spot you can see I dug into it some and it zaps.

Batch 2 the next day, I used Roebic the second time. It too has white spots also that if I dig into the soap, zap. They don't zap on the surface just down into it. This is pic 3. You can see the whites origin is below the surface. That's why I dug into it some to see what the origin was.
Why both soaps? In thinking I soaped too cool on this one again. Added half water half heavy cream again, same method. This was black Amber lavender from bb, and it's supposed to go dark brown....but it looks freckled and other soaps that morph color never look so speckled. The white is the problem, but look at these dark spots all over... It has no colors added in the brown portion. What's that all about?? It was a 27oz oils 5.5% SF.

So, was it just not dissolved? I experimented yesterday and poured the Roebic lye into the pot, added some water, and checked to see if it dissolved easily. It did, very easily! Can cooling the lye cause it to develop crystals on the edge once some water dried? Maybe the lye water on the bowls edge recrystallized after cooling and evaporating some?

Are these soaps gelled or ungelled? And have you tried scraping into a part of the bar that doesn't have white spots to check for zap?

Ungelled and froze immediately for 18 hrs.
The inside of the soap if dug doesn't zap, and the edges do not zap. These white spots look almost powdery once I dig to get to them and they zap to the point I have burned my tongue (no worse than say hot food burn).
It's obviously lye and I can't for the life of me figure out why this has happened. Never before, and wasn't using a new method or anything. I can't rebatch with crystals, can I?:x:-(

Are you sure that's lye and not some additive that didn't get fully incorporated?

How old is your lye? Any chance you have gotten moisture in it your bottle/can. Once it gets the slightest bit damp and crystalizes, there's almost no breaking it up in my experience.

DWinMadison said:

How old is your lye? Any chance you have gotten moisture in it your bottle/can. Once it gets the slightest bit damp and crystalizes, there's almost no breaking it up in my experience.

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This is a good train of thought. I've posted a link somewhere on this forum about the shelf life of lye and according to the report it will "decay". One of the problems with buying lye at the "hardware" store. You have no idea how long its been packaged, how long it sat on shelves etc. Granted it would have to be pretty old to notice any problems.

The moisture thing could be a possibility, or a inadequate mixing during your process. Years back I had a batch of lye water that I didn't mix well. Made my soap, then while cleaning up, noticed a good portion of my lye was a giant crystal on the bottom of my lye mixing cup. Needless to say, it wasn't a stellar loaf of soap and it found itself in the trash.

Brand new lye opened that day, kept in a paper bag in a paper bag in a closet high up shelf.
The only additive was the flax in the blue, and it was only IN the blue. Not in the white nor the black Amber lavender soap.
There was heavy cream, and my fats tried to solidify because I got it too cold.

I wondered if it was cold chunks of tallow, or cream, or shea, or coconut since I soaped a little too cold....but they zap bad .

I figured I'd give it a few wks and rezap, but honestly it's so zappy and burned my tongue I think it's lye.

I also considered was it ricing, but the fo is said to behave perfectly (tobacco bay leaf BB).

I have used the Roebic NaOH many times with no problem. As I do not sell my soap, and therefore don't use it quickly, I needed a way to judge how much moisture might be getting into the bottles. My way of judging how much moisture might be getting into my NaOH is to weigh the NaOH bottle when I open it, then when I get through pouring what I need for that soap batch. Repeat with each batch. I record each weight before and after pouring and compare. Any increase of weight between the last batch "close" weight and this batch "open" weight is moisture. I have more problems with ED NaOH absorbing moisture than Roebic. The bottles for ED allow me to push air out even when tightly closed. Not so with the Roebic bottles.

Long story short, I don't know what is wrong, but this is my personal experience with the hardware store NaOH.

Some questions:

1) do you strain your lye solution before adding it to your fats?

2) has it been colder than usual? Your lye solution is pretty concentrated - approaching 1:1 and the amount of lye that water can dissolve and keep in solution is related to temperature.

judymoody said:

Some questions:

1) do you strain your lye solution before adding it to your fats?

2) has it been colder than usual? Your lye solution is pretty concentrated - approaching 1:1 and the amount of lye that water can dissolve and keep in solution is related to temperature.

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Never strain, but never a problem before.
Colder, yes it was.
Concentrated, yes. I usually do a 1:1 ratio or close and add my milks into the oils after adding the Concentrated lye water. These were a total of 34% water as a % of oils, soapcalc has a 38% default.

I stirred I checked for sticking on the bottom.

All I can think is it's unmelted fats butters and harboring the lye water, maybe it will saponify over a long period of time, or I let it cool and evaporate too long and got lye crystals clinging to the sides.