I found the culprit.

[rodeogal]

A few weeks ago I posted about a double batch of soap that took for ever to trace. Speculations were that it was the thawed olive oil, not running the recipe back through the lye calculator, even the temp being too high. Well, yesterday, I tried again. This time I used the lye calculator, made my plain old soap recipe - doubled. Poured everything in my bucket, fired up my paint mixer on the drill and stired - for 20 minutes. NOTHING HAPPENED again! I was miffed and baffled. Then, I had a thought - what if it wasn't getting stired enough? I grabbed my stick blender, stuck it way down into the bucket, and voila - in 5 minutes, the soap traced! I won't be using this not-so-bad-boy again!

 

[SueSoap]

Interesting that the culprit was the mixer. I would have guessed everything else - as you did at first. Kudos for finding the problem!

 

[DWinMadison]

Good to know. Thanks. That sounds exactly like something I might have tried, so you've saved me the heartache.

 

[siobhan1011]

I used a hand mixer once and only once as the soap refused to trace, a few blasts with the stick blender and whoosh lovely trace in about a minute.

 

[rodeogal]

Its funny isn't it? You would think if it mixes paint, it would mix soap. The bright side is the mixer was only $5 so no big deal. Who knows, I might need to stir a 5 gallon bucket of paint someday!

Gotta love those stick blenders!!