Help me troubleshoot a weird (soft, grainy) batch of CP

[Jibbian]

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting, so hello and thank you in advance for the help (and patience). I've been making soap for about a year and a half, and I've been incredibly lucky so far... until this most recent batch. Can you help me figure out what went wrong so I can avoid this in the future?

Details:
-I was trying to use up some palm oil that was hovering around its expiration date
-I soaped at around 110 degrees
-I was using a Bramble Berry slab mold with a silicone liner and bar dividers
-I let the soap harden up in the mold for 5.5 days before un-molding because it was so soft
-When I finally un-molded it, some of the soap tore off, and the interior looked crumbly and granular, but still quite soft
-Some of the bars from the center of the mold, seem pretty normal - maybe because they gelled?
-Unfortunately, I made the mistake of changing several variables at once: I added salt to my lye water for the first time, and I tweaked my usual recipe a little bit to accommodate the amount of oils I had. So I'm just not sure where this went wrong.

Recipe:
30% Olive Oil
25% Coconut Oil
25% Palm Oil
16% Avocado Oil
4% Castor Oil

1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt per lb.
Red Brazilian Clay for colorant
10x Orange Essential Oil & Lavender Essential Oil blend @ 5% of total oils/.08 oz per lb.

38% water percentage/27.044% lye concentration
5% superfat (plus a little extra from diluting additives)

Thanks again!

Jillian

 

[DeeAnna]

My guesses --
Did you raise the olive and/or avocado % compared with your previous recipes? This recipe is fairly high in oleic acid and I'd not use so much water with recipes like this so the soap will saponify more easily and give you a firmer bar up front. Use 33% to 40% lye concentration (please get away from using "water as % of oils"!) for recipes like this. https://classicbells.com/soap/waterRatioConc.asp

I also suspect you got a partial gel if the center bars seem firm and fairly normal, but the bars around the edges seem softer and more crumbly. At least that's what I see when my soap is like this. You can simply wait and let the cure firm up the crumbly bars or you can do a "rescue" CPOP now to try to fix this issue. https://classicbells.com/soap/rescueOP.asp

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Too bad about your soap. What was the trace level when you poured the soap into the mold?

 

[Jibbian]

This is a very old post, but I wanted to thank you, @DeeAnna — I've started using a 35% lye concentration (your link was very helpful). I've also started using sodium lactate and soaping at a higher temperature. This recipe has worked much better since. Thanks again!