How to formulate your own recipe

[Mrs.Larios]

I have a question on how to figure out how much oil I need in a 2 pound batch I originally thought my total oils needed to weight 32ounces (2 lbs) I am just now realizing after I did the recipe and printed it out that after I add the water and lye the complete recipe will be 48 ounces and i will have leftover batch after filling my 2 pound mold. Does this mean I must lower my oil amount? Should the full batch with oils,water, & lye be 32ounces or just the oils?

I added a picture to help you guys get an idea of what I'm talking about


Thanks

 

[Susie]

The 32 oz is just the oils. If you have a mold that measures to hold 2 lb soap TOTAL, then you need to down size your recipe. However, many of us(me) will refer to a certain mold as holding a 2 lb batch when we are referring to just the oils. I know it is not the most specific way to refer to batch size, but almost everything we do is based off of PPO(per pound of oil), so that is how we think of it.

Now, if you made or had a mold made to hold specifically 2 lb of soap, then you need to fix your recipe. Several of the lye calculators offer batch resizing.

If you give the measurments of your mold, someone(probably not me as I suck at math) can probably help you use the tool in the stickies at the top of this portion of the forum.

 

[Nevada]

Hello Mrs Larios, without getting into the dimensions of your mold (read the sticky on "calculating mold size"), your 2 lb mold will probably suffice. Maybe cut the water to 32%. Have some plastic cups handy for any possible leftover.
Good recipe!
Roy

 

[Mrs.Larios]

Thank you so much I guess for now I will just use the recipe as is and see how much is left over and if it's not too much it might be a good accident since I always like to keep a bar or 2 for myself when I make soap I can fill 1-2 indivisible bar molds

 

[Seawolfe]

If I only want to fill my 2 lb mold I use 25 oz of oils. I am also still using the default full water in soap calc most of the time. But it never hurts to have extra to plop into spare molds

 

[littlehands]

A good default is about 11 oz oils per pound of finished soap. If I want to mound my mold super full, I add a few ounces to that.