Wearytraveler, I have found that crockpots vary so much with their temperature settings and how hot they actually get. You have to get used to how each one works at their respective temperature settings. I have two I used for cooking for many years, so had already gotten used to these variations for the one I now use solely for soaping. But then I also bought another smaller one when traveling so that I could do HP at my son's house last winter & it was seems to run hotter than the one I normally use. I have used it while traveling a couple of times now and I find I have to keep a much closer eye on my soap when I use it because it heats up very fast. I actually will turn it off periodically to keep the temp down, it seems to run so hot. The last rebatch I did where I melted down a CP soap in my at-home crockpot, I used the low setting during the whole process of rebatching, which technically was hot process because the soap had not finished saponifying before I cut it up and put it in the crockpot.
Do you have a themometer to use to test how hot your soap is getting? I have read different recommendations for HP temps. One was 'no hotter than 170F' (when using the oven), another was 200F (when using a crockpot on the high setting), so I suspect there are different ideas on the matter.