Alternative to crockpot / slow cooker for HP?

[Soapprentice]

Here I am, again, with more questions .. I have been doing CP soap for about 4 months and loving every bit of it. And recently I happen to see some HP and wanted to try shave soap and transparent soap. The issue is, in India, we don't use crockpots and slow cookers in our cooking. We get crockpot on amazon through amazon export but they sell 110v and we need to use a step adapter to get to 240v, which would lead to faster breakdown. So I would love to know of other options. One more thing, in India, we use gas stoves not electric.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Double boiler. Solar oven.

 

[Soapprentice]

Double boiler. Solar oven.

Double boiler still needs to be put on stove right, it would take a lot of gas for such long hot process I believe? Am I wrong? I mean I hear people say leave it for 1hr/ 2hrs on YouTube.

 

[dixiedragon]

I'm not sure how much gas it would take - it's low and slow, which is why we use slow cookers. I have always wanted to try HP in a solar oven. The ones you make yourself don't seem to be strong enough to be remotely practical (and I worry about food safety), but I think would be perfect for HP.

 

[IrishLass]

I use my oven. I preheat my oven to 180F/82C while I am bringing my batter to a trace in a stainless steel soup pot. Once my batter is traced, I cover my pot with its lid and then set it inside my oven and cook @ 180/82C until zapless. Easy-peasy.

Edited to add my oven is electric, and my batter reaches zaplessness between 45 minutes to 2 hours tops (depends on the recipe).


IrishLass

 

[BrewerGeorge]

For that matter, I'm not sure you couldn't "hot process" with a heating pad and decent insulation - or possibly with just insulation alone. After all, the vaseline stage of HP isn't significantly different than a CP in full gel, except that we usually stir in scent and superfat afterward with the former, while leaving the latter alone having added them earlier.

 

[Scooter]

I use my oven. I preheat my oven to 180F/82C while I am bringing my batter to a trace in a stainless steel soup pot. Once my batter is traced, I cover my pot with its lid and then set it inside my oven and cook @ 180/82C until zapless. Easy-peasy.

Edited to add my oven is electric, and my batter reaches zaplessness between 45 minutes to 2 hours tops (depends on the recipe).


IrishLass

Really? So you are not stirring it for hours and talking to it and saying things like, oh, look, now you are in the apple sauce stage, I will come stir you again when you reach the whipped cream stage? All these stages and stirrings make it look like a lot of work to me.

 

[Soapprentice]

I use my oven. I preheat my oven to 180F/82C while I am bringing my batter to a trace in a stainless steel soup pot. Once my batter is traced, I cover my pot with its lid and then set it inside my oven and cook @ 180/82C until zapless. Easy-peasy.

Edited to add my oven is electric, and my batter reaches zaplessness between 45 minutes to 2 hours tops (depends on the recipe).


IrishLass

Oh.. I can do oven.. would 100C be fine as well? It is the lowest temp on mine.

 

[Soapprentice]

For that matter, I'm not sure you couldn't "hot process" with a heating pad and decent insulation - or possibly with just insulation alone. After all, the vaseline stage of HP isn't significantly different than a CP in full gel, except that we usually stir in scent and superfat afterward with the former, while leaving the latter alone having added them earlier.

Interesting thought but is it practical?

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Interesting thought but is it practical?

I don't know, just spitballing. After a couple of tries, I personally decided that the entire HP process was impractical and unnecessary.

Once we reject the myth that HP soap is "ready" to use any faster than CP soap, there is no benefit to the added work of HP, IMO.

Last week I made a simple, unscented, no color soap for a friend via CP that literally took me 20 minutes (I timed it.) from picking the recipe up off the printer to spritzing the isopropanol and covering the mold. Cleanup was a bit more, next day, but HP would have that too. Compare that to the trace, cook, stir, cook, stir, cook, stir, pour method of HP? No contest.

 

[IrishLass]

Really? So you are not stirring it for hours and talking to it and saying things like, oh, look, now you are in the apple sauce stage, I will come stir you again when you reach the whipped cream stage? All these stages and stirrings make it look like a lot of work to me.

LOL. Nope. Well......okay- I do confess to talking to it a little bit, but I say different things such as, WooHoo! You've reached the translucent stage- time to zap test!" and, "Let's get you colored & scented and glopped into the mold now!", and "How come you never turn out as pretty as your CP sister?"

As for stirring, I'm basically an adherent of the 'No-Stir' school of thought when it comes to my OHP. I figure I already did all the stirring it needed when I brought it to trace before I put it in the oven. The only thing I do during the cook is take a little peak every 20 minutes or so to see if it has reached the translucent (gel) stage yet. Once it has done so, I give it a brief stir and zap test. If there's zap, I let it cook about 10 minutes longer and check again, repeating if necessary until there is no zap. When there is no longer any zap, I color, scent and pour/glop into my mold.

Oh.. I can do oven.. would 100C be fine as well? It is the lowest temp on mine.

Temps between 170F/77C and 180F/82C are the ideal because there's less chance of volcanoing, but there is a way to work around ovens that only go as low as 100C/212F. The Aquasapone site has a great tip for such ovens that only go as low as 100C: They recommend to turn your oven on it's lowest setting to preheat as you are bringing your soap batter to trace. Once it has traced, cover your soaping pot and place it in your preheated oven, and then let it cook @ 100C for 20 minutes. When the 20 minutes are up, turn your oven off, but keep your covered soap batter inside it and let it finish cooking to the translucent stage in the residual heat.

Once we reject the myth that HP soap is "ready" to use any faster than CP soap, there is no benefit to the added work of HP, IMO.

Very true. My fully-gelled CP soap is not any different than my HP soap, except for the fact that my HP is uglier and needs to cure for longer to get rid of all that water so that it doesn't melt away so quickly. The only time I do HP is when I absolutely have to, i.e., when making my shave soap, which is impossible to CP due to the substantial amount of straight-up stearic acid in it, and also when I'm working with an ornery FO that gives me soap-on-a-stick when CPed.


IrishLass

 

[Arimara]

For that matter, I'm not sure you couldn't "hot process" with a heating pad and decent insulation - or possibly with just insulation alone. After all, the vaseline stage of HP isn't significantly different than a CP in full gel, except that we usually stir in scent and superfat afterward with the former, while leaving the latter alone having added them earlier.

Nope, Heating pad is good for gelling a soap. More modern heating pads have safety features that prevent you from having them on for prolonged lengths of time so it wouldn't make sense to use one for HP, per se.

 

[Soapprentice]

Thank you IrishLass... the only reason I want to try HP is for shave soap and transparent soap. I will give a try with oven soon then.

 

[Ruth]

Can i use rice cooker?

 

[DeeAnna]

A rice cooker is supposed to shut off automatically when the temperature rises to a certain point. At least that is what mine does -- maybe there are others that can be set to operate differently? For soap making you don't necessarily want the automatic shut off -- you want the heat source to stay on until you turn it off. Otherwise, I think it would work fine.

 

[DeeAnna]

Oh, and I want to add -- you don't have to do a full blown "cook for hours and hover constantly" HP method to do shave soap. Irish Lass' method of oven cooking would work great.

I start my shave soap about the same as she does, but rather than put the traced soap in the oven, I cook mine directly on the stove burner with LOW heat. Since it's on a stove burner, it needs more stirring to keep the soap at an even temperature, so it's more fussy that way, but it only needs 1/2 hour or less of gentle heating before it is done and zap free. At that point, I turn off the heat and put the soap in a mold or other container, and let it cool.

Based on my experiences with all sorts of soap, I am fairly certain the usual HP cook time really isn't necessary. Create a recipe using a 25% lye concentration (the usual amount of water for an HP recipe) AND start with ingredients that are warm enough -- about 180 F (80 C). Just bring the ingredients to trace, cover the soap pot, and put the pot in something to keep the warmth in, such as an insulated cooler, a pile of heavy blankets or towels, etc. Uncover after a suitable time (an hour or two would probably be good) and put the warm soap into the mold.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

A hint for shave soap, especially in the early testing phase, make 100g batches in the microwave, short 10 second bursts. But you do need a good scale that can do at least 0.1g measurements

 

[gloopygloop]

I do mostly HP and have done for years, I like the fact that I can control it a little more, no seizing etc. yes swirls are a bit more challenging but all possible. I do like Irish Lass, oven usually 100c bottom of oven on a shelf just off of the oven floor, 45 minutes later its zap free, no stirring or even peeking until after 45 minutes. Then add FO additives and colour if using, have tried all kinds of ways and means and moulds, with some playing my HPs can look CP,ish. I wondered of you just put your soap pot into another pot with boiling water and left it there, would this not gel the soap in a similar time? never tried but I might just!