CP OR HP for Aleppo Soap?

[topofmurrayhill]

How do they maintain a liquid consistency? It appears they add a lot of fresh and salt water which keeps the soap a liquid, but wouldn't the water and soap separate or no?

Batters that would fail to come together in CP can sometimes come out fine using heat and stirring and time. The older soapers who used alkali derivatives from plant ashes reportedly cooked the soap for days. With pure hydroxide it evidently takes less than a day to pour the soap. I guess that sounds plausible.

My speculations about fluidity include (1) high water amount, (2) perhaps incomplete saponification when the soap is poured, (3) maybe high lye discount rather than alkali excess, (4) possibly because of some potassium alkali in addition to sodium. I always welcome additional ideas.

Interesting question about salt. I used sodium lactate to enhance fluidity, but I don't know if table or sea salt has anything like that effect. I've not really used it.

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Interesting video TOMH.

Btw, 4.59 in the video - epic packing skillz, probably done it a few times by the looks of it... : D

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Interesting video TOMH.

Btw, 4.59 in the video - epic packing skillz, probably done it a few times by the looks of it... : D

Right??

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Right??

Totally!

On a different note, I secretly wish they at least used a vacuum cleaner to prepare the floor instead of just a broom to move the dust around...

But I may be a bit nitpicky, perhaps dust is an important secret ingredient of their soap... : P

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Totally!

On a different note, I secretly wish they at least used a vacuum cleaner to prepare the floor instead of just a broom to move the dust around...

But I may be a bit nitpicky, perhaps dust is an important secret ingredient of their soap... : P

Haha, I noticed that. I think the videography focused on it even if the narration didn't.

 

[SimpleSoaper]

Thanks for posting the video - I have never heard of this soap. I liked the fact that they showed the olive oil before they put it in the cooker. It looks like what you can buy in a bottle in the US, and the soap it produces is light colored like a castile made with US olive oil. I've often wondered what makes other olive oil soaps so green...

I found someone in Israel selling this soap on ebay and bought 4 bars. I'm really curious to try it. Should be here in 2-3 weeks.

 

[TheStat]

Batters that would fail to come together in CP can sometimes come out fine using heat and stirring and time. The older soapers who used alkali derivatives from plant ashes reportedly cooked the soap for days. With pure hydroxide it evidently takes less than a day to pour the soap. I guess that sounds plausible.

My speculations about fluidity include (1) high water amount, (2) perhaps incomplete saponification when the soap is poured, (3) maybe high lye discount rather than alkali excess, (4) possibly because of some potassium alkali in addition to sodium. I always welcome additional ideas.

Interesting question about salt. I used sodium lactate to enhance fluidity, but I don't know if table or sea salt has anything like that effect. I've not really used it.

I think most aleppo soapmakers use only caustic soda these days but I'm not sure. Salt is added to the aleppo soap maybe to harden it, but it may increase fluidity. As for the olive oil the soapmakers use, I think it might be crude pomace olive oil which would explain the very green color.

 

[TheStat]

Thanks for posting the video - I have never heard of this soap. I liked the fact that they showed the olive oil before they put it in the cooker. It looks like what you can buy in a bottle in the US, and the soap it produces is light colored like a castile made with US olive oil. I've often wondered what makes other olive oil soaps so green...

I found someone in Israel selling this soap on ebay and bought 4 bars. I'm really curious to try it. Should be here in 2-3 weeks.

I think maybe the soapmakers use crude pomace olive oil, or they might just add coloring to the soap.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

I think most aleppo soapmakers use only caustic soda these days but I'm not sure. Salt is added to the aleppo soap maybe to harden it, but it may increase fluidity. As for the olive oil the soapmakers use, I think it might be crude pomace olive oil which would explain the very green color.

I believe they do use raw pomace oil. I'd like a reliable place to buy it. The soapmaking suppliers seem basically confused between raw and refined pomace oil, two very different things, so I don't know what I'll get.

 

[SimpleSoaper]

In the past I've searched the internet for pictures and sources of raw olive oil, and also raw pomace olive oil, trying to find the thick dark green oil that looks like what is in the popular video of Aleppo soap making. I've never been able to come up with much of anything though. One thing I wonder, is if they are using a crude pomace oil, then what kind of solvents end up in the final soap product? Both the Greek Papoutsanis and Kiss My Face olive oil soaps are dark green, but smell like kerosene. There is nothing on the labels that should smell like that, so I have to wonder. By contrast, Marseille soap has a very clean, natural scent. I've never actually had any Aleppo soap.

I don't know if this collection of images has circulated on this forum, but here are some pictures of Aleppo soap making from a German website:
http://www.historische-aleppo-seife.de/alepposeife_story_produktion.html
There are some interesting tidbits in there if you use an online translator (or speak German). The first pressing olive oil looks very dark and crude, but it's the second pressing that is said to be used for the soap. One picture has a caption that says "soap is cooked and stirred, still without Laurel oil", so maybe this supports the idea that laurel oil is added after saponification. And check out that picture of the guy breaking open that cask of lye! Think of all the precautions we take when working with just a few grams...

 

[topofmurrayhill]

In the past I've searched the internet for pictures and sources of raw olive oil, and also raw pomace olive oil, trying to find the thick dark green oil that looks like what is in the popular video of Aleppo soap making. I've never been able to come up with much of anything though. One thing I wonder, is if they are using a crude pomace oil, then what kind of solvents end up in the final soap product? Both the Greek Papoutsanis and Kiss My Face olive oil soaps are dark green, but smell like kerosene.

It was mentioned in some video (maybe the one above?) that pomace oil is used. It's very easy to believe that they use whatever oil is least expensive, so probably inedible. That could be raw pomace oil or it could be virgin pressed oil that is unfit for consumption because of its FFA level. These oils require further refining to be sold as edible oil, but would be fine for soap and should saponify more easily.

I don't know if I can believe that raw pomace has high levels of solvent in it. I think the solvent is removed as a step of the extraction process rather that by refining. If there were contamination, the amount would probably be small and not detectable by smell because pure alkanes like hexane are odorless. Alkanes used for cooking and heating require odor to be added so that leaks can be noticed.

 

[TheStat]

I believe they do use raw pomace oil. I'd like a reliable place to buy it. The soapmaking suppliers seem basically confused between raw and refined pomace oil, two very different things, so I don't know what I'll get.

Yeah I can't find a single place that has it. I've even asked my local olive growers and they said that after the first pressing they just give the pomace to farms.

 

[TheStat]

In the past I've searched the internet for pictures and sources of raw olive oil, and also raw pomace olive oil, trying to find the thick dark green oil that looks like what is in the popular video of Aleppo soap making. I've never been able to come up with much of anything though. One thing I wonder, is if they are using a crude pomace oil, then what kind of solvents end up in the final soap product? Both the Greek Papoutsanis and Kiss My Face olive oil soaps are dark green, but smell like kerosene. There is nothing on the labels that should smell like that, so I have to wonder. By contrast, Marseille soap has a very clean, natural scent. I've never actually had any Aleppo soap.

I don't know if this collection of images has circulated on this forum, but here are some pictures of Aleppo soap making from a German website:
http://www.historische-aleppo-seife.de/alepposeife_story_produktion.html
There are some interesting tidbits in there if you use an online translator (or speak German). The first pressing olive oil looks very dark and crude, but it's the second pressing that is said to be used for the soap. One picture has a caption that says "soap is cooked and stirred, still without Laurel oil", so maybe this supports the idea that laurel oil is added after saponification. And check out that picture of the guy breaking open that cask of lye! Think of all the precautions we take when working with just a few grams...

Yeah I've searched for crude pomace olive oil and I haven't found a picture anywhere, maybe because it's used exclusively in industry. Yeah they don't really seem to care that much about the dangers of lye lol.

 

[SimpleSoaper]

Yeah I can't find a single place that has it. I've even asked my local olive growers and they said that after the first pressing they just give the pomace to farms.

If you can get fresh olives locally, you can try making your own olive oil. I don't speak/understand much Spanish, but this how-to is fairly self explanatory. Not any olive trees where I live though...
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQezlMmIRs[/ame]

 

[TheStat]

If you can get fresh olives locally, you can try making your own olive oil. I don't speak/understand much Spanish, but this how-to is fairly self explanatory. Not any olive trees where I live though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQezlMmIRs

Doesn't crude pomace olive oil require solvents?

 

[SimpleSoaper]

Doesn't crude pomace olive oil require solvents?

I believe that solvents are used to extract the oil only after the first or second pressing. Not speaking Spanish, I'm not sure why that guy boiled the olives. Maybe to make the oil easier to squeeze out by hand? If you search youtube, you can find other videos of people cold pressing fresh olives, but most are grinding the olives and then using some sort of mechanical press. This guy's method uses things that most of us already have in our kitchen, which is why it appealed to me.

 

[TheStat]

I believe that solvents are used to extract the oil only after the first or second pressing. Not speaking Spanish, I'm not sure why that guy boiled the olives. Maybe to make the oil easier to squeeze out by hand? If you search youtube, you can find other videos of people cold pressing fresh olives, but most are grinding the olives and then using some sort of mechanical press. This guy's method uses things that most of us already have in our kitchen, which is why it appealed to me.

Yeah one day I'll test out that process to see how the olive oil comes out. Some guy in Turkey said he might have some crude pomace olive oil during the olive harvest season in october/november.

 

[Isabisa]

HP Aleppo soap fluidity

Batters that would fail to come together in CP can sometimes come out fine using heat and stirring and time. The older soapers who used alkali derivatives from plant ashes reportedly cooked the soap for days. With pure hydroxide it evidently takes less than a day to pour the soap. I guess that sounds plausible.

My speculations about fluidity include (1) high water amount, (2) perhaps incomplete saponification when the soap is poured, (3) maybe high lye discount rather than alkali excess, (4) possibly because of some potassium alkali in addition to sodium. I always welcome additional ideas.

Interesting question about salt. I used sodium lactate to enhance fluidity, but I don't know if table or sea salt has anything like that effect. I've not really used it.

Can you be a bit more specific on the water amount/lye discount? I have been making CP Aleppo soaps for a year now but am interested in trying a different process. I have read on this thread that someone was adding the laurel berry oil at the end. Would you consider this important? I use a 80/20 % of my oils (olive oil and laurel berry) in the soaps and find that this works well but am not sure if it makes a difference adding the laurel oil at the end or not.

 

[shunt2011]

If you are doing CP it doesn't matter when you add it as the lye is still active and will take what it wants. I do 70/30 and now they are 1 1/2 years old and I like it. If you do HP you can add your oil as the SF after the cook but I wouldn't add 20%. Make sure you do the calculations correctly for your lye too. I probably wouldn't exceed 8-9%. I don't do HP so others that so will pipe in.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Can you be a bit more specific on the water amount/lye discount? I have been making CP Aleppo soaps for a year now but am interested in trying a different process. I have read on this thread that someone was adding the laurel berry oil at the end. Would you consider this important? I use a 80/20 % of my oils (olive oil and laurel berry) in the soaps and find that this works well but am not sure if it makes a difference adding the laurel oil at the end or not.

I don't have the numbers handy, but I tried quite a low lye concentration -- in the teens I think -- and it cooked up fine. If you want to take a shot at maximum authenticity, you would do it hot process and add the laurel oil at the end. There is total agreement between sources that the laurel oil is added at the end.

Less clear is whether the laurel oil is intended to be a superfat to some extent or not. Last time I went with not. I used more than enough caustic to fully saponify all the oil, but I mixed in the laurel oil before pouring and let it finish in the mold. Next time I might try a lye discount.