HP soap turned to jelly overnight :/

[Edmisar]

I used canola oil, coconut oil, and olive oil at 12, 5 , and 15 oz then threw in lye at 4 oz. it came to a nice trace with temperatures around 120-125. Upon reaching trace, I added a tbs of dark cocoa powder and a tsp of cinnamon and stirred those guys in. Everything looked fine and creamy when stored in a mold of a plastic container with a lid.

Now it's a pile of gel.

I'll wait a few days, but idk if I should rebatch this or wait a while???

Anyone?

 

[kchaystack]

Did you use a soap calculator to figure your lye amount? I am showing you should have used. 4.3 oz of lye for a 5 % lye discount/SF. Also how much water did you use?

You will probably need to mix .3 oz of NaOH with about .5 oz of water. Throw it all into a big pot and mix it again. If it too thick to mix well then you might have to hot process it to get it all to combine and finish.

 

[KristaY]

I used canola oil, coconut oil, and olive oil at 12, 5 , and 15 oz then threw in lye at 4 oz. it came to a nice trace with temperatures around 120-125. Upon reaching trace, I added a tbs of dark cocoa powder and a tsp of cinnamon and stirred those guys in. Everything looked fine and creamy when stored in a mold of a plastic container with a lid.

Now it's a pile of gel.

I'll wait a few days, but idk if I should rebatch this or wait a while???

Anyone?

When I ran your recipe through Soap Calc it says you have a SF of 12% and almost 85% soft oils. If you didn't add anything to help harden it like salt or sodium lactate, it'll take a while to get firm enough to unmold (up to a week or so). Here a few questions I have:

How long ago did you make it?
Did you gel or not?
How much water did you use to dissolve the lye?
You used NaOH, not KOH, right?
Is the lid on the plastic container?
What type of plastic is it and what does it say on the bottom? There should be a number inside a triangle. That number should be a 2 or 5.

 

[cmzaha]

Did you cook it until it went through the gel phase of hp. You do not pour at trace when hp'ing. After trace you cook until low and you will see the batter folding over itself and turning transparent during the gel period. It could be that your soap is gelling in the mold. A 12% superfat soap will set up but it will usually feel oily, at least to me

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome to the forum, Edmisar! :wave:

I agree with the others about needing to know a bit more about how you went about things.

You mention that your batch is an HP batch, but like Carolyn mentioned above^^^, HP soap batter is not poured at trace, but at a certain point beyond trace, basically after the soap has been cooked past the gel stage and is no longer zappy. The texture of the batter at that time is typically thick & gloppy (much like mashed potatoes), and tends to form hardened lumps when exposed to the air while pouring/glopping it into the mold. In some cases it can be a little smoother, much like thickened jam, but is still fairly quick to form hardened lumps here and there when exposed to the air during pour.

Going by what you wrote in your opening post, it sounds like you made CP instead of HP, and now it has reached the gel stage. If it were me, I would just let it sit and do its thing, and then you can unmold and cut when it has hardened back up.

Maybe the term Cold Process (CP) is throwing you off a bit. CP can be soaped warm or hot, too, but unlike HP which is cooked past the gel stage until it's no longer zappy before pouring, CP is poured much earlier at the trace stage.


IrishLass

 

[Edmisar]

You all are so on top of this! Thank you so much.

Okay so I used 12 oz of water with 4 oz lye.

I think I did sort of a HP/CP blend as someone noted in their response to my S.O.S. Why? Perhaps because I initially wanted to do CP until someone said cooking the mix eliminated the need to wait half my life for soap to cure...

Since I did not wait until mashed tater consistency and poured right at trace stage, probably my pH wasn't low enough yet, or maybe my lye calculator didn't help me see whether I had too many soft oils involved-- I should study that since I desire a hard bar of soap- certainly not this gel jelly gunk!!!

I'll wait a week and pray over it-- hoping it will harden, but idk

I've got humidity here in NC so I'm keeping kids on these plastic bowls which are polypropylene #5 lined with parchment paper.

This jelly is weird. Weird stuff!

I love you for your careful consideration! Thanks~

I'm replying from my phone and I'll try to remember the questions you posed and respond (but I can't see your post while typing this)

You asked about my lye-- it's NaHO at 98% purity to account for any moisture that may have taken that other 2%

Umm polypropylene bowls with lids on, lined with parchment papers

I used a lye calculator and it gave me a recommended lye by oz to use and water too, so I threw in 12 oz water to 4 oz lye and mixed into warm oils when their temps matched around 125*F

My trace took 30 minutes with a stick blender thing

I did not intentionally do a gel phase since I haven't learned about it much yet, but since I have tubs of gel now, maybe it's doing it on its own?

 

[kchaystack]

Ummm..

Ok first - HP does not reduce cure time. In can infact increase it since you use more water on average. You used a 25% lye concentration and you did not cook long enough so I am betting it separated.

I would put it back in the crock pot, add the .3 oz of NaOH in .5 oz of water to cut the super fat down and mix and stir it until it looks like mashed potatoes or Vaseline, then put it back in the mold.

 

[KristaY]

Unfortunately you got some incorrect info about cure time. HP and CP need to cure a minimum of 4 weeks, many people prefer 6-8 weeks. Just because HP is poured when saponification is complete doesn't mean it's good soap in a few days. It's safe, just not very good. Plus, it'll melt away in the shower so won't last very long.

Also, since your recipe is so high in soft oils it's going to need a lot longer cure, like many months. So going the partial HP route really didn't help you out. Plus, you used a lot of water which will need to evaporate out. There's nothing you can do to speed up cure, it takes it's own sweet time going through the chemical process.

While you wait for this batch get over it's gooey goofyness, I suggest trying another recipe that's a bit more balanced and will cure to greatness in 4 weeks. There are many suggestions all over the forum for a simple, basic recipe that includes ingredients that are easy to come by in any area in the states. Here's one that's shared routinely:

30% Lard, Tallow or Palm oil
20% Coconut oil
45% Olive oil
5% Castor oil
5% SF

You can definitely play with the percentages of each, swap out some of the olive for canola, etc, to get properties that suit you.

Good luck Edmisar!

 

[KristaY]

Ummm..

Ok first - HP does not reduce cure time. In can infact increase it since you use more water on average. You used a 25% lye concentration and you did not cook long enough so I am betting it separated.

I would put it back in the crock pot, add the .3 oz of oil in .5 oz of water to cut the super fat down and mix and stir it until it looks like mashed potatoes or Vaseline, then put it back in the mold.

Did you mean NaOH, Haystack?

 

[kchaystack]

Did you mean NaOH, Haystack?

oops yes
Ill fix that

 

[Edmisar]

hmmm my jelly needs more cooking time? I wish I could let it sit and it would fix its jelly self into something hard! Wishing is not chemistry though...

 

[cmzaha]

Let it sit and see what happens. To me it looks like it went through a full gel, but will take a few days to harden up with all the soft oils. Soap can be rebatched anytime. If it hardens up, which I am guessing it will, in a few days let it cure and see how you like it. If it is to oily from the superfat just make confetti from it and add it into a batch of batter with a 2-3% superfat. Will make a lovely soap. It is very seldom a batch cannot be saved.

 

[IrishLass]

I'm with Carolyn on this 100%. I would just let it sit and see what happens.


IrishLass

 

[Edmisar]

3rd day making soap, but they all turn from cream colored trace to translucent gel

I follow the lye calculator as closely as I can with my simple scale, but my soap looks great only up to trace and then after pouring into the moods, it starts to turn slowly slowly clearish from the nice creamy color that once was.

Has anyone else seen this happen?

Is it temperature issues? I don't let my oils and lye solution cool below 125 and I also don't let them hear above 150 (this is where the lye goes by itself upon mixing with water.)

It's not really a CP but not all the way HP. It's my process and its failing lols

 

[TeresaT]

It sounds like it is going through a gel phase. What is your (exact) recipe with the weights? Are you covering the soap after it has been poured? Where are you putting the mold to sit while it sets up/saponifies?

 

[Susie]

Unless you expressly prevent gel, soap is going to at least get partial gel. Those are doing exactly what they are supposed to.

 

[cmzaha]

If you are using what soap calc considers full water 38% Water as percent of Oil weight you will almost always get a full gel. The more the hotter the gel. It actually looks like the soap in the above picture overheated and is weeping. The best way to avoid overheating is to up your Lye Concentration. You could start by entering 30% in the Lye Concentration box in soap calc. 38% Water as percent of oil weight is around 25% lye concentration if I remember correctly. I soap 33-40% lye concentration depending on my recipe and I have to force my soap to gel. When I first started soaping I was getting a lot of failures due to overating and separating soap with my soaps, then I learned it was the full water/liquid I was using and I would have to put all my soaps in the freezer to prevent it from happening. I no longer have to do that except for my milk soaps or if I just want to prevent gel. You can also reduce your soaping temp down to room temp. The only time I soap around 110º F is when using a high lard recipe and room temp master batched lye. Sometimes lard can decide not to properly saponify soaping to cool

 

[IrishLass]

I follow the lye calculator as closely as I can with my simple scale, but my soap looks great only up to trace and then after pouring into the moods, it starts to turn slowly slowly clearish from the nice creamy color that once was.

Has anyone else seen this happen?

Yes, every time I make a CP batch. lol Trust me, nothing bad or unusual is happening with your soap. The behavior it is exhibiting is actually perfectly normal CP behavior, believe it or not, and is something that I want my CP soap to do, as do all other CPers such as myself that like our batches to gel. Your batch is just doing what comes naturally to it- it's just going through the gel stage.

Is it temperature issues? I don't let my oils and lye solution cool below 125 and I also don't let them hear above 150 (this is where the lye goes by itself upon mixing with water.)

Yes- temperature does indeed play a role in the gel stage in CP, as does one's water amount. For example, the closer to a 'full water' amount in your batch, the better chance you have of your soap achieving full gel, while the less water you have in your batch, the more difficult is to achieve full gel, unless you CP on the warm side, that is - somewhere between 110F to 125F, which is actually the range I use with my own CP since I don't like to use a full amount of water, but I like my batches to gel.

It's not really a CP but not all the way HP. It's my process and its failing lols

I'm not sure I follow. I truly don't see failure at all (gelled soap is success in my book ).

In regards to whether or not your process is a CP or HP process.... most, if not all of us here at SMF, would consider your batch to be CP. Like I mentioned above, the temps at which you soaped your batch are actually the same as that which I use for my own CP. Can you explain more about how or why you do not consider it to be a CP batch?

Just to clarify, HP (hot process) is the process whereby the soap batter is actively/continuously cooked in a crockpot, on a stovetop or in the oven somewhere between 170F and about 200F or so, all the way through to the point of complete saponification. And then the soap is molded.

In CP (cold process), one does not continuously cook the batter all the way to complete saponification. Instead, the batter is poured well before saponification is complete, when it is still quite fluid and creamy. Although the soap-maker may decide to temporarily apply a certain amount of heat to their CP, it is nonetheless still considered CP because the applied heat is only temporary, and the amount that is applied is only as much as will gently encourage the batter to achieve full saponification on it's own (rather than being continuously cooked all the way to the point of complete saponification by an outside source of high heat).


IrishLass

 

[dixiedragon]

What do you mean by "simple scale"? This could be a weight issue.

Yup, that's gel phase.

Here is a tutorial on hot process soap with lots of good pictures:
http://allcrafts.tripod.com/

Here are some good pictures of gel phase:
https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/gel-phase/

Honestly, I think your recipe and process are kind of a mish-mash of things you've picked up. You'd do better to pick something simple and do it once so you can observe what is supposed to happen.

 

[kchaystack]

The OP stated he used 4oz of NaOH to 12oz of water, or a 25% lye solution. That weak of a lye solution is very liable to break emulsion and separate into oil and water without the heat of HP to drive the reaction. Also, it is going to stay soft for a long time as all that water evaporates - even tho it will gel at a lower temp.