Help with rebatching

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narismom

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So I made a batch of soap on Tuesday. I went to take it out of the mold and it is super soft. It's a simple 3-oil beginner's recipe. I realized after starting that I did not have enough palm oil. I know...dreaded mistake...anyway, I upped the coconut oil, but I see now that I should have done something else...not sure what. Here is the recipe:
Oil(s) Selected Amount %
Coconut Oil (Virgin) 8.16oz 25.00%
Olive Oil 14.68oz 45.00%
Palm Oil 9.79oz 30.00%
5% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount 4.588oz
Ounces of liquid recommended 10.77oz
Yields 47.99oz
Current Batch (total oil weight): 32.63oz

I was 1.5 oz short on palm oil. My question is, can I rematch? And if so, should I add anything other than water to correct this batch? Thanks!
 
If you are absolutely positive you are 1.5 oz short on palm oil, then you add 1.5 oz palm oil to rebatch it. If your soap is still soft enough, I might be guilty of trying to just mush it into the pot with a tablespoon of water or so, and heating it to see if you can skip grating it before adding the oil.

Note-I did not run this through a lye calculator to check it. If you did not check it with a lye calculator before making it, I would suggest you do so before rebatching.
 
If you are absolutely positive you are 1.5 oz short on palm oil, then you add 1.5 oz palm oil to rebatch it. If your soap is still soft enough, I might be guilty of trying to just mush it into the pot with a tablespoon of water or so, and heating it to see if you can skip grating it before adding the oil.

Note-I did not run this through a lye calculator to check it. If you did not check it with a lye calculator before making it, I would suggest you do so before rebatching.

Thanks for the response Susie. The problem is that I ran out of palm oil...so I'm wondering if I can sub another oil.
 
Let me recap -- You are 1.5 oz short of palm out of a total of 32.6 oz of fat. When I put that into my soap calculator, your "short" recipe with 4.6 oz of lye is at a 3% superfat rather than the original 5% you wanted.

I'm not sure you have a real problem. Your lye is very likely not 100% pure but most soap calcs assume NaOH is 100% pure. That means your 3% superfat is probably closer to something like 7% superfat, so I just don't see a lot of reason to do more than give the soap some time to firm up. Give it a week and then zap test. If no zap, you're good. If slightly zappy, I'd give it another 3 weeks and recheck. I bet anything the soap will be fine.
 
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