Ingredient age

[Guspuppy]

Hello peeps! I haven't made soap in two years now, but I am about to run out so I need to make more. I have some well aged ingredients I wonder if I can use? Coconut oil (stored in the basement), beef tallow (stored in the fridge). I have olive oil (stored in the basement) too, quite a lot actually, but I feel like no matter what that is probably rancid.
Also my lye is probably damp because its very humid here in summer in my no-ac house and when I last made soap I was already having troubles with it taking much longer than expected to set up, even stick blended to heavy trace. I had thought at the time it was the Great Value shortening I was using and threw it out, but after cure the soap was lovely, so I determined my lye was not weighing out correctly due to damp.

Anyway my questions are: do I have to buy ALL new ingredients? And if I have to buy new lye I do not want to do a big order from the lye guy since I likely won't be making a lot of soap in the future, just for my own use. So where to buy a smaller amount?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[dibbles]

Hi Guspuppy! Nice to see you. Coconut oil has a pretty long shelf life, so if it smells okay I would use it. Tallow - I don't know because I don't use it too often and I think it always has a bit of odor (I don't render my own, but every so often will order from Soaper's Choice). I don't know what to say about the olive oil either. The price of OO has increased so much since you last made soap it would really be a shame to have to discard it. But if you aren't making soap often and want the soap to last for a couple of years, it might not be worth the risk. On the other hand, if you are okay with giving it a try knowing that you might lose the soaps some time in the future it might be worth the risk.

I still make a lot of soap, but if I were to only want one bottle, I think I would try to find it locally. On Amazon, I have had good luck with the Belle Chemical brand.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I agree - CO will be fine, tallow maybe not, and OO possibly. Does it have a best before date on it? If you are still within that and it doesn't smell, I'd go for it. Hey - why not do a version of Zany's No Slime Castile for greater usage of the OO?

 

[basti]

So where to buy a smaller amount?

Hardware store~ I get mine from my local Ace Hardware (Rooto), 32 oz for 8.59$. Home Depot also has it (Instant Power) and they have free 2 day shipping if your store is out or doesn't carry it. I've used both brands with zero troubles.

 

[AliOop]

Great to hear from you, @Guspuppy!

Since the tallow was in the fridge, if it doesn't have any mold or any rancid smell (as opposed to a normal beefy smell), it's probably fine. I typically render large amounts of lard and tallow that last a year or more in the fridge, and I haven't had issues soaping with any of it.

I will say that the tail end of my recent master-batch of oils was clearly oxidized, as the last few batches traced like Superman, i.e., faster than a speeding bullet. But that was my fault since the mix was kept at room temp, which got up to 80F at times in the summer when we took off for a few days and turned off the air-con.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I would make a small 300-500 gram batch of each oil to see how it goes.

Zany's No Slime Castile for greater usage of the OO?

Good suggestion. I would use my favorite variation of ZNSC -- 85% OO with 10% coconut and 5% castor to boost lather. It should be fine. Olive oil is known to have a long shelf life.

If any oil smells off, you can try washing it with salt water (scroll down) or simply making soap with it and then Salting Out the soap. It's a fun remedy where you dump the soap shreds into boiling salted water. In about 15 minutes, soap curds start rising to the top. Slip them out with a slotted spoon and dry on paper towels. While still warm, mold them into balls while squeezing out as much of the water as you can or press into a mold. The dark brown water left in the pan includes the glycerine that is a byproduct of soapmaking. All you have left is PURE soap that weighs about 1/3 less than what you started with.

For the damp lye, you need to use more of it than required by the calculator you use. See @DeeAnna's Soapy Stuff for how to calculate how much extra NaOH you need.

Think positive and HAVE FUN!

 

[Becky1024]

If your lye is full of clumps don’t use it. If it has been tightly sealed and not clumpy it is still fine to use.

 

[Guspuppy]

Thanks so much everyone! I discovered a huge, unopened jug of OO in the basement yesterday from Costco. Since it was never opened I'm going to use it. Also the opened jug smells fine, I may or may not use that. I love Zany's no-slime Castile but last time I made it I got DOS in 6 months. I think better not to use old oil for that. Although my notes say I trimmed it with a potato peeler so possibly that metal helped the reaction. The tallow also smells and looks fine so I will probably use it as well. My lye is clumpy so I'll decrease my superfat to 1 or 2% to account for that.

Given what dibbles said about the price of oils I think it behooves me to go ahead and make soap with what I have as long as it does not smell bad. Throwing out ingredients without giving them a chance seems too wasteful! I'm ok with throwing out soap later if its bad. All I'll have wasted is a little bit of time.

I really appreciate all the input!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I've been happy with 0% SF in my hard bars lately. Especially those that contain "unsaponifiables" like Olive Oil and shea butter.

Throwing out ingredients without giving them a chance seems too wasteful!

Amen to that, Sistah!

 

[lmc617]

Hello peeps! I haven't made soap in two years now, but I am about to run out so I need to make more. I have some well aged ingredients I wonder if I can use? Coconut oil (stored in the basement), beef tallow (stored in the fridge). I have olive oil (stored in the basement) too, quite a lot actually, but I feel like no matter what that is probably rancid.
Also my lye is probably damp because its very humid here in summer in my no-ac house and when I last made soap I was already having troubles with it taking much longer than expected to set up, even stick blended to heavy trace. I had thought at the time it was the Great Value shortening I was using and threw it out, but after cure the soap was lovely, so I determined my lye was not weighing out correctly due to damp.

Anyway my questions are: do I have to buy ALL new ingredients? And if I have to buy new lye I do not want to do a big order from the lye guy since I likely won't be making a lot of soap in the future, just for my own use. So where to buy a smaller amount?

Thanks in advance!!

My lye got clumpy but I tried it and clumps dissolve great. No problems. I used older oils and butters and they didn’t smell rancid and worked just fine.

 

[Guspuppy]

My lye got clumpy but I tried it and clumps dissolve great. No problems. I used older oils and butters and they didn’t smell rancid and worked just fine.

Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to hear!

 

[AliOop]

Well, yes, clumped lye will dissolve just fine... but it won't be the same strength as fresh lye. You can end up with soap not being fully saponified because your lye solution was a lot weaker.

I recommend reading this article by @DeeAnna to learn how to check the purity of your lye, and then how to adjust for that. This will allow you to use the correct amount of the old, clumpy lye (which is going to be more than you would use if you had fresh lye).

 

[Zany_in_CO]

See @DeeAnna's Soapy Stuff for how to calculate how much extra NaOH you need.

I recommend reading this article by @DeeAnna to learn how to check the purity of your lye, and then how to adjust for that.

It does bear repeating. Sometimes i think members go so fast they don't bother to read the advice given in links to @DeeAnna's Soapy Stuff.