Deanna, I have a question...

[AnnaMarie]

I do take SB breaks while blending this because it takes awhile. I'm glad your patience held out Your experience is very similar to mine, and I personally find the end result satisfying when the curdled batter comes together so thick and nice Fill me in when you unmold. Mine is like a loaf of smooth, white cheese.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[newbie]

Good God, this took forever! How did you even get yours to finally trace at 40-50 minutes?! I SB'ed a fair amount but the motor was getting so hot that finally after over an hour, I had to SB and then go away and leave it for 5-10 minutes and then comes back and SB for a few minutes and go away etc... IT finally separated and came together after 3 stinking hours!!! I wasn't prepared for how workable it was so after I poured, I thought I may as well do a swirl so it went back in the pot for some color and spoon swirl. If I ever do this again, I'm using plumeria or something like that.

This reminded me very much of laundry soap which uses a lot of water and you blend it three times a day. The soap will form on top and then magically on day three, the whole thing blends together and the entire bucket turns into a snowy white mass of soft soap.

Now to see if I can get a gel. This is really fascinating. Thanks, Anne Marie for the post and taking a chance on putting up a really lye-heavy recipe. I imagine you might have felt a touch of trepidation but this has been extremely interesting.

 

[AnnaMarie]

Wow! It took that long for a trace?!? That's some patience you have! I'm really impressed! What wattage is your SB? I have found that not all SB's are created equal. I originally started out with a hand mixer- lol! It's not fast, but faster then hand stirring! My fastest SB was an Oster that was 250 watts. I would get a trace in about 15 sec. Now I'm down to a more humble 200 watts with my cuisinart and my traces take about 1-2 min. However, this recipe takes me about 20-30 min, but I really didn't watch the clock closely, so I'll time next time
I have to say this whole thread has kept me entertained as I have been down with a nasty cold and don't have much energy right now, but I have to rally for Monday morning here....I've been glad to discuss this with others because I was really interested in some other perspectives on this one. I am very curious to see the results of the "group experiment". I feel like I'm back in a college lab class- lol!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[grayceworks]

And just what is the weight value of 1 qt of OO anyways?

30.98oz.

PS- Grayceworks, I'm thinking you have the same love of murder mysteries I do

. Read Edgar Allen Poe by any chance or better yet Wilkie Collins (his Woman in White is the best!)

Have read Poe, love murder mysteries. Love Sherlock Holmes stories, of course.

Used to love watching Quincy Jones MD on tv. And Columbo.

 

[cmzaha]

I am going to unmold mine tomorrow, cut it put on the top rack and check on it in a couple of months, will be interesting to find out how the water discount affected it. LOL, mine traced in less than 10 minutes, but pomace does tend to trace quicker. Thinking I just might wear gloves to cut this loaf especially since I did not let it gel and I know it is going to be really really zappy!
Decided to cut it now and glad I did. It already hard. LOL did not wear gloves. going to put these babies on the top shelf of the rack and forget about them

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

This is a very interesting thread! Looking forward to seeing how it all works out

 

[engblom]

Regarding the blending time:

I once made a fully boiled lye heavy castile with a lot of water (with intention to salt it out). As noticed in this thread, a lot of excess of water will take a long time to trace. Also, there are a lot of difficulties to keep it from separating.

If I would need to do it again I would use normal amount of water, mix to trace, let it thicken a bit and then gradually add the excess of water keeping it at trace all the time. The reaction is just slower if a good share of the lye is lying under the oils not doing anything and occationally mixed up. By keeping it at trace, all of the lye is staying among the oils keeping the reacting going.

Oh, and as said by AnnaMarie, the end result was not the typical slimy castile. Even though I do not know if that was because of the salting out or not. It has quite a bit of salt as all liquid was saturated with salt during the salting out process.

 

[DeeAnna]

Update on my soap:

Another hour in the oven at 170 deg F and the soap came to full gel. Turned off the oven, and left the soap in the oven overnight.

This morning my oven was very clean, at least in spots. Some of the water phase had separated from the soap phase. It was dripping out of my wood mold and making brown, watery caustic puddles on the floor of the oven. I took the mold out of the oven and am letting it drain into my sink instead. edit: The brown color of the water was color leached from my wood mold. The watery stuff as it is coming from the soap is clear, like water. end edit.

The soap is very soft, not remotely ready to come out of the mold, but it's still a pretty lemon-pudding color. There's a thick layer of white ash on the top -- no surprise.

In hindsight, it's possible the soap came to gel too soon with the CPOP method, causing the separation to happen. I'm not discouraged; it's all part of learning. I'll let it continue to drain and see what happens. The bright side is that the drainage is removing a fair bit of lye from the soap.

One of the internet links about this soap mentions this tendency for the soap to weep. I don't know if my soap is gently weeping exactly -- it's a bit more like an annoyingly leaky faucet.

AnnaMarie -- You have only insulated the soap, not CPOP'ed it. What has been your experience as far as initial softness, separation, and the weeping with this recipe?

cmzaha -- You said you used a 38% lye concentration for your "Uber Lye Heavy" soap. Just want to confirm that you used more of a "normal" water concentration for CP soap, rather than the large excess of water called for in the original recipe. Am I following you correctly?

 

[AnnaMarie]

I can't really speak to its condition during gel because I bundle it up so good and leave it alone only to maybe stick my hand under the towels a while later to feel the sides of the mold for the tell tale heat that indicates that the soap is indeed starting to gel. I leave it for a day and then cut. As I wrote earlier it is like a loaf of smooth cheese- cuts very well. There is maybe a thin layer of water surrounding the soap, but nothing brown. After it is cut it is business as usual with a lot of lye crystals and soda ash.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

I am going to unmold mine tomorrow, cut it put on the top rack and check on it in a couple of months, will be interesting to find out how the water discount affected it. LOL, mine traced in less than 10 minutes, but pomace does tend to trace quicker. Thinking I just might wear gloves to cut this loaf especially since I did not let it gel and I know it is going to be really really zappy!
Decided to cut it now and glad I did. It already hard. LOL did not wear gloves. going to put these babies on the top shelf of the rack and forget about them

Pretty color! So yours set up quick? That's interesting, and I'm curious about that!

Did anybody happen to weigh their cut bars?

 

[DeeAnna]

I'm planning to follow the weight loss of the bars, if that's your thought, AnnaMarie. My soap isn't ready to unmold yet.

 

[AnnaMarie]

I am curious, and I wish I would have thought to weigh mine initially because it is clear they have "shrunk". I could probably work backwards and take a guesstimate though. I might even make another batch -in the interest of science of course
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[DeeAnna]

Been babysitting my soap on and off during the day (I have a home based business), and I can say for sure that CPOP is NOT the way to go with this recipe. Definitely not up to my usual standards and expectations. But sometimes ya gotta learn the hard way.

"...I might even make another batch -in the interest of science of course..."

I'm heading that direction myself. In the interests of science as well. Gotta keep earning those "superhero CEUs" or they might revoke my cape.

 

[newbie]

This follows with your experience, DeeAnna.

I put half of my batch in a loaf mold and half in individual molds and put them inthe oven at 170. About 30 minutes in, I checked to find the individual bars completely utterly separated and the loaf mold on its way, with separation onteh top but through the oil, I could see batter still. I dumped the loaf mold batter back into the bowl and SB'ed it and it came together nicely. Remolded.

The individual ones were a mess. I managed to dump it all back in the pot and blended for a very very long time, cursing the whole way because it was 1 in the morning and I'm stuck in a cold kitchen in my pajamas with this dumb soap. It was finely grainy and ricing. Blended and blended. Cooled it off in a bowl of cold water and blended and blended. IT finally seemed to go back to pudding but I didn't feel completely confident that it was what it was supposed to be so I blended some more. It seemed pudding like and was holding bubbles, so I dumped it in a loaf mold. Both went back in the cool oven for holding, so a cat wouldn't get near it.

Tonight, the one that had partly separated is very hard and a touch brittle at the bottom of the cuts. It did cut okay otherwise. THe other one is soft to the touch and when I pick up the mold, I can feel the soft give onthe bottom. It is nowhere near unmolding. No leaking or weeping, just way too soft. They are like completely different soaps. I can't compare otherwise since I can't get the other out yet but the difference is astonishing. I wonder if I didn't get the completely separated ones back together as thoroughly. Does that even make sense?

 

[AnnaMarie]

I'm getting the distinct impression that this recipe although simple to make is very particular to method. I won't ever try to CPOP this one. I think I'm going to make it again tomorrow and take careful notes this time for our grand experiment. I also want to weigh the bars and keep track of water loss. I tried to find the phenol stuff today, but I think I'll have to order it. You gals are good sports:clap::clap:

Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[DeeAnna]

Yes, I understand where you're coming from, Newbie! Once an emulsion breaks, it can be hard to fix it back again. I've noticed this with my lotion making too, so pat yourself on the back for having given your all, given the difficult situation. Give the softer soap a little more time to firm up, perhaps?

I gingerly removed my soap from the mold several hours ago and actually got it cut a little while ago. If you'd asked me earlier in the day if I would be cutting bars tonight, I would have laughed and shook my head. So much for me being able to anticipate what this soap is going to do!

The unmolding and cutting went okay, but the appearance of the soap varies quite a bit. It's not the prettiest soap I've ever seen -- it's rather homely, in fact. The the outer shell of the loaf is opaque, light yellow, and relatively firm. The center of the loaf is darker, more translucent, and still relatively soft, as you can see in the pics. I sometimes see a drop or two of liquid oozing from the translucent sections and that is leaving voids in the soap (visible in the pics as well).

The soap bars are clammy cold tonight, which is quite different than my usual soaps. The water in these bars is evaporating fast in my winter-dry house. I need to get them weighed before bedtime to keep my promise to AnnaMarie.

What I do find interesting is the soap is not zappy at 24 hours after being made. I think it has some excess alkalinity because there's an odd tingle (AnnaMarie -- didn't you mention this too?), but I'm not getting a really-truly unmistakable zap to say it's seriously alkaline.

I think a little more practice is required before I can say I really know how to make this recipe. But I learned one thing -- CPOP is definitely out! I think the emulsion is barely stable at warmish room temps, and just can't handle CPOP's 170 degrees. I really didn't think of that last night, but it seems so obvious today. Engblom's suggestion to saponify the oil with the 50:50 lye:water solution to trace and then slowly add the extra water might be a way to help the emulsion remain stable -- much like making homemade mayonnaise or Hollandaise sauce.

"...I'm getting the distinct impression that this recipe although simple to make is very particular to method...."

Yep, I agree! I'm enjoying myself -- thanks for getting this started, AnnaMarie. Great fun!

 

[newbie]

I weighed all the bars from my good loaf and recorded them.

I went to look again at my other loaf and found the bogginess on the bottom was a bunch of lye water. I released it and will just let the loaf sit since I don't have anything else to do with it. I don't know if it will resorb or what will happen. Should I drain it off?

Yes, I think CPOP is a very bad idea for this recipe. Perhaps the large amount of water has something to do with it. I'm glad at least half of my recipe is okay so I can see how to goes with time.

Oops, I didn't see your reply before I started typing mine, DeeAnna. The softish reblended soap is actually firmer than it was a hour ago. I have to figure out what I want to do with the water, which I tested and it was zappy but not as zappy as an ungelled bar of soap even. This is so strange!

 

[AnnaMarie]

You read right- no zap here. ???? I wonder about why that is? I'm not a chemist, but since the lye is so diluted as opposed to being closer to saturated if that doesn't have an effect on this zap thing? Hmmmm.. All food for thought!

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Should I drain it off?..."

I let my soap drain freely. The water is going to leave sooner or later, so why not sooner?

"... it was zappy but not as zappy as an ungelled bar of soap even. This is so strange!..."

Too true. This is one weird soap.

Well, one of the questions that came to me as I was stirring and stirring and stirring that soap last night ... what's the purpose of all that water? It doesn't make sense from a soapmaking point of view as I normally do soapmaking. As I mused on this question, I had a quick mental picture of water running and this came to me:

Chemicals naturally diffuse (move) from places where there's a lot of the chemical to places where there is less. In the case of a soap bar, water will diffuse from the wetter interior to the drier surface, and then the water will evaporate into the open air as long as the humidity is reasonably low. In the case of this particular soap, there is a LOT of water to evaporate, so the rate of diffusion is going to be fairly high compared with a "normal" soap. The excess sodium hydroxide will be dissolved in the migrating water and that means the lye will go wherever the water goes.

When the water carries the lye to the surface of the bar, the lye can't evaporate ... but it can react with carbon dioxide to make that soda ash we talked about earlier. So the diffusion of all that water to the surface of the soap might be an important way of quickly reducing the excess alkalinity in the soap.

The ash on top of my loaf was impressive by the end of today -- so thick it was crusty and flaking off. I zap tested a bit of the ash and it was zap free.

 

[newbie]

In trying to drain it, it came out of the mold. The top is soft and spongy and the bottom is hard but not crumbling. I think I have a case of the lye precipitating down and causing the lye gradient type soap. The top has a few areas that lightly zap, which might just be from the lye water, but the bottom half of the bar is quite zappy; my tongue is still feeling it. I will still keep it to compare with the other loaf.

 

[AnnaMarie]

I'm going to make a batch tomorrow. I'm still trying to kick this crud- it's finally going away and I really was not at my shining brightest today roblem:roblem: