Crock pot temp

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wearytraveler

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I'm about to start my fist batch ever and one thing I don't think I've asked nor do I recall being mentioned in the vids I've seen is the temp setting for the crock pot when letting the soap go through its phases. My particular pot has warm, medium and high. Can anyone let me know what's the suggested temp setting?

Thanks!
 
I would try warm to melt some oils. Does it really say 'medium' on your slowcooker?

Opps! Nope Warm, low and high. Was in the process of getting everything ready and didn't check what I typed. So warm to melt but what about for the cooking process?

Thanks!
 
Opps! Nope Warm, low and high. Was in the process of getting everything ready and didn't check what I typed. So warm to melt but what about for the cooking process?

Thanks!

Low would be standard and good enough. You could use high but unless you're going to pay absolute close attention to your cooking soap, I suggest against it as the risk for volcanoes increases with heat.
 
Low would be standard and good enough. You could use high but unless you're going to pay absolute close attention to your cooking soap, I suggest against it as the risk for volcanoes increases with heat.

Awesome! Thanks for the info. I plan to sit right next to it and watch it like a hawk (coffee made).

Thanks again!
 
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.
 
That's true. I also have a relatively young crockpot. The newer ones are said to get much hotter than the older models but I still find that low is a general standard. The real thing that is a must in this situation is to just stay local and watch how the soap behaves with the setting on low. You may have to do this for several batches, especially if you use various recipes to try.
 
As the process is going it seems that temp at the high setting is at or just under 200F. I stirred the soap a little while ago after leaving it be on high for 15 minutes and got the reading directly from the bottom and then again from the mix that I stirred up from the bottom.

Thanks again!
 
When I rendered suet into tallow, after I turned off my crockpot, and poured the tallow into a bowl, the temperature reading of the tallow was 250 degrees F. That was the low setting. When I watched a youtube video on rendering, the guys crockpot was only 200 degrees F. There is temperature variance, so monitor your temperatures closely.
 
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