High but not 100% coconut oil

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You can also chill the mold before and do as DeeAnna mentioned above, putting it on a cooling rack with a fan. I have one fragrance that severely overheats so I have a rack set up in the freezer, use a small fan next to it and chill the mold before pouring. It will still gel but does not overheat to the point of separation. Of course this takes having room in a freezer :D
 
45 C (115 F) is too warm when making this type of soap -- not sure where you're getting the idea that this temp is "pretty common." In fact, I don't soap that warm even for soaps with almost no coconut. The initial temp of my soap batter temp (the temp of the combined fats and lye) is usually around 95-105 F and that's plenty hot enough for the high-lard soap I normally make.

For a high coconut oil soap, I'd shoot for a soap batter temp of 90-100 F (32-38 C). Try warming your fats only enough to get them fully melted and clear and be sure to let your lye solution cool to room temp or just mildly warm to the palm of the hand.

Use more water. You mention using 2:1 water:lye ratio, and that's likely not enough for high coconut soap to slow down the rate of heating. I would try a 28% lye concentration (2.57 water:lye ratio). There is a trade-off in that higher-water soap has a lower gel temperature, but higher-water soap tends to saponify slower. You're trying to find a sweet spot that works for your particular soaping style. You may have to experiment to see what works best if you're determined to prevent gel in this type of soap.

You can put your soap in the refrigerator, but from my reading here on SMF, I know that is not a sure-fire solution for preventing gel. A another option that may work better is to put the mold up in the air on a cookie cooling rack or several soup cans (anything that allows air to flow underneath the mold) and put a fan blowing on the mold.

And if all else fails, you might try to like the look of gelled soap. In my experience, it isn't necessary to force gel with this type of soap. High coconut soap is usually pretty good about gelling all on its own.

-Thank you. I read blogs from other soapers regarding 100% coconut oil soaps is where i got the idea of high temp to make sure the coconut oil was melted. Soap queen was one then i got the idea the other bloggers had just copied off her instructions. I like to soap cooler normally. I'll keep playing around with the lower temps.

-I normally soap at 2:1 Water/Lye but this soap is 1.5:1 even less water, i'll experiment with higher water before giving in entirely.

-but your right i might like the lightly gelled look as i'm a no fuss soaper normally, having to fuss around with fridges and fans usually means i need to change my recipe as it will do my head in. set it on the bench and do its thing, that sounds a bit more like me! So my next test will be let it gel! Would i keep the temp at 90ish? the waxy gelled one was probably because i soaped at 125f and insulated, it got toooo hot and looked like a giant wax crayon! it was hideous.


You can also chill the mold before and do as DeeAnna mentioned above, putting it on a cooling rack with a fan. I have one fragrance that severely overheats so I have a rack set up in the freezer, use a small fan next to it and chill the mold before pouring. It will still gel but does not overheat to the point of separation. Of course this takes having room in a freezer :D

Thanks! I'll give that a go after i do my "let it do its thing and gel test"
 
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