Help- opaque Irish Lass GLS batter

[JayJay]

Hi There,

I am attempting the IL GLS process. I have been blending for 50 minutes and my batter is still opaque. The temp fell to 150 degrees and started to stiffen so I put it back over the heat to continue blending.

I am using a combo of manual stirring, wisking, and SB to prevent my blender from overheating.

I should mention that my SB is plastic. The heat initially distorted the bottom of my blender a tad. I hope there isn't melted plastic in my batter. I know. I know. I was warned against using a plastic SB but I have done it twice before with GLS and had no issues. I am guessing that is because I previously used Dee's method using half water, half glycerine. I dissolved my lye in water first. So the temp of the hot solution was probably lower.

With both of my other attempts, my soap went through all the stages pretty quickly. In just a few minutes, I had thick Amber paste.

Any advice? I hate waste. I would like to salvage it. Even if it does have plastic in it. I have probably washed my hands with worse.

 

[JayJay]

I got flying bubbles!!!!!!!!!

Whoooooo hoooooo!

This is my first time getting flying bubbles!

I brought the temp up to 245 degrees and stirred for a few minutes more. The paste got thin. Some bubbles formed on the top and before I knew it, little bubbles started shooting from the pot and flying around my kitchen.

This paste still looks very loose. I am attaching a pic here. I will follow the rest of her directions and see how it turns out.

 

[IrishLass]

Hi JayJay!

When I make mine, I don't even use the stickblender, or any extra heat. This is what I do (in short):

I boil the KOH and glycerin together until the KOH is dissolved.
Pour the hot glycerin/koh into my melted oil/fats (off the heat)
Hand-whisk until the 'flying bubble' stage (still off the heat)
Cover my pot and leave off the heat until it turns into paste all on it's own (usually between 4 to 6 hours).

As you can see, I don't use any heat at all except for when I dissolve the KOH/glycerin and melt my oils.

It sounds like you are trying to heat and blend to quickly force it to the paste stage (instead of letting take its time to do it on its own)?

Whatever you do, don't panic. Although I do things differently to get to the paste stage, it should be completely salvageable. GLS is so forgiving.

If it were me, once your batter started turning opaque and stiffening, I would have stopped mixing, took it off the heat and covered and let it finish becoming paste on its own.

For what it's worth, I have used DeeAnna's method only once (so far), and instead of turning into amber paste, my batter looked like opaque vanilla pudding. It's funny that you tried to use my method this time, and instead of amber paste (which is what I always get with my usual method), you got vanilla pudding instead. lol

Anyway, I would just take it off the heat, cover it and leave it be until it no longer zaps. Once it's zap-free, go ahead and dilute it. At least that's what I would do.



Edited to add- we were posting over each other. lol Flying bubbles- WooHoo!

IrishLass

 

[JayJay]

Hey! Thank you for the speedy reply. Looks like you were responding while I was busy reheating my pudding! Soaping has taught me patience but I still have a long way to go before I'm completely mature.

If I ever get pudding again, I will just cover it and wait.

It's funny that you called it pudding because my husband just said that he almost wanted to dip his finger into the pot because it looked like tasty pudding. He fully knew that it was soap! Lol. He said that we must keep kids away whenever I am making this stuff because they wouldn't be able to resist it.

Anyway, I think that I am back on track now. I stopped stirring and now it looks like one of the pics in your tutorial. I will cover it up and wait to test it.

Thanks for your help.

 

[DeeAnna]

My own personal opinion -- When I get my batter to a stable emulsion (and yours definitely is) I cover it, walk away, and let it do its thing. There's no need to mix for hours 'n hours, and it's not strictly necessary for the soap to gel even though I know liquid soap paste often does gel and many liquid soapers look for gel as a sign of a successful soap.

You're not seeing the batter turn into a translucent paste because it's still not hot enough. At this point in the game, I'd say you'll have to heat the batter even warmer, if you feel the need to force the soap into a vaseline-y gel. I wouldn't worry about it, but my way is not the only way to deal with this issue and still get a nice soap in the end.

ETA: Written before I read your and IL's latest messages. A little late, but I'll leave this message here in case it helps others.

 

[Susie]

The true beauty of this method is the lack of cooking and fussing. It is a wonderful soap free of the stress of many other methods. Trying to cook and force it makes it way too complicated.

 

[JayJay]

I see. It was emulsified after a just a few minutes of blending. If I had realized that I could have walked away after 5 minutes, I surly would have. :cry:

I didn't go into this process intending to cook the soap. My stirring and blending was done off the fire. After it got so stiff that it was hard to stir, I measured the temp and realized that it was pretty cool. So, I decided to put it back on the stove to loosen things up a bit (which I now realize was not necessary, thanks to you all).

I really appreciate your help and support Dee Anna, Susie, and Irish Lass. Now I know that emulsion is enough. I will certainly spare myself the trouble in the future. I really thought I messed something up big time. Ah, soaping is such an adventure.

My paste is still zappy. I am headed to bed and pick this up again tomorrow.

 

[Susie]

Just give it time. If you used a good lye calculator with a positive superfat, and weighed everything correctly, then you just need to give it time.

 

[Dana89]

I know this is probably going against SCIENCE But i hAVE NOTICed when I MAKE IL,s recipe heat seems to prolong the time it takes to turn into paste. Sorry about the errors, my keyboard is fried.