Aluminum Reaction....Soap Scare...Almost a Flop!

[SimpleSoapsnSalts]

Well, I had my first encounter with aluminum and lye.
My sister and I were making up an 18 lb batch of Cinnamon Oatmeal with half Goat milk lye solution. I saw a good tip from somewhere online that you can run your lye/milk through a strainer to get out the few curds the sometimes form. Well, right before we went to pour the lye/milk in the oils I remembered and grabbed our "metal" strainer. I'm totally familiar with what havoc aluminum can do, as we work with milk in cheese making all the time; and so I've been real careful to never get close to aluminum when working with soap. So, I didn't even think when I started pouring the lye through an ALUMINUM strainer. It started foamy and hissing, after we got almost all the lye poured through. I was really afraid we had ruined a huge batch of soap when it wouldn't come to a trace as usual. But it did! We did our first swirl and it looks great!

Soapy Happy,

CW

 

[not_ally]

I guess I automatically buy stainless steel for all my soaping needs, but it would never have occured to me that aluminum would react like *that*. Good to know. Glad that it worked out well, that sounds a bit scary ....

 

[IrishLass]

Here's an older thread that shows a video of what lye does when it comes into contact with aluminum:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49169&highlight=aluminum


IrishLass

 

[cmzaha]

All my metal strainers are stainless steel and I use them all the time for straining lye solutions

 

[SimpleSoapsnSalts]

Yeah, this one that we've been using for a long time looks stainless, I really didn't know it wasn't until now. The lye just foamed around it abut 1/2 in thick. Its really clean now! LOL!

Thanks IrishLass for the Video, very informative.

We have very few aluminum utensils in our kitchen, I really don't like have any.

Always learning something new!

CW