DOS

[Catscankim]

DOS is perplexing me. I don't have a huge amount of soaps with it, but I do have a few.

Weird to me is that it is usually just one single bar in a batch. Of course not every batch, and to be honest its only about 5 bars that I have found it on.

One batch I found two bars, but the other few it was just one bar. These are 8 bar loaf molds.

In my mind, I would think that if I had one out of the batch, that they should all be infected. These soaps have been curing for 8 weeks or more. I guess I just don't understand dos.

Is it an environmental thing? A couple of them came from a padded ironing board. So I originally thought that was the problem. But then some were cured in a wooden cabinet lined with paper towels.

Out of curiosity I started digging at one dos with my fingernail, and it went to the middle of the bar. So its not just a surface thing that can be planed off.

 

[CpnDouchette]

I am no expert but I would think its a a bit like mold. If a loaf of bread goes moldy, the mold doesn't necessarily appear on every slice or part of the bread but accelerates over time. In the case of your loaf, you may find that contact to something (metal say) has caused rancidity which is slowly spreading. I have read that removing the rancid bars will slow the acceleration of the rest of the batch, as does digging out the spots. If its not a contact thing, but because of contamination during production, its probable that eventually the whole batch will be affected at some point.

Do you use distilled water? It could be trace minerals have caused it and those trace minerals are only present in small quantities, or areas of the batch hence its going rancid at different rates.

 

[dibbles]

I rarely get DOS, but I have experienced this as well. One bar with one DOS spot. I've never figured it out really, but I have wondered if there could have been a drop of tap water on my stick blender or in a container (or something to that effect) that might have found it's way into the soap batter. The only time I've had it affect several bars from one batch I blamed it on RBO that was past its prime.

 

[AliOop]

I also rarely get DOS and it is usually just one bar. @dibbles that is a good point... I never thought about water droplets on the stick blender, or the silicone mold liner, or the spatulas. That is very likely for me since I often am washing soap dishes right before I make soap.

 

[penelopejane]

I think there are so many ways to get DOS that it is difficult to know where it comes from.
I use all clean utensils, wash my hands, put ROE in all my oils (except the hard oils) as soon as I get them, I use gloves to make soap and I never touch a soap without gloves. But still I occasionally get DOS on a soap (maybe once a year). If I get it on one soap I use the rest of the batch for family.