Is there a solution to this besides rebatching?

[soapingfool]

Hello! I ran out of grapeseed oil after I'd already weighed my other oils (lesson learned!), so I recalculated using a tiny bit of rice bran oil. I've tested my recipe that doesn't use RBO, but not this one, as I didn't think it would make much of a difference with the RBO being so low.
Welp, it did.
Is there any way to fix this, besides a re-batch? It's been "cooking" in it's cardboard box (which I use to gel, since my oven is broken ATM) for a day, and I think this is as good as it's gonna get.
On the plus side, I think this is a decent soap dough recipe, lol!

 

[KiwiMoose]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'not much difference'. is the published recipe the one you were supposed to do, or the one you actually did? It looks like you should have used 10% grapeseed, but had to replace some of that with RBO, am i right?
Did you use 350g of lye? and 5% superfat? If so then your recipe is fine.
Or was it more that it went too thick that you are concerned about?

 

[soapingfool]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'not much difference'. is the published recipe the one you were supposed to do, or the one you actually did? It looks like you should have used 10% grapeseed, but had to replace some of that with RBO, am i right?
Did you use 350g of lye? and 5% superfat? If so then your recipe is fine.
Or was it more that it went too thick that you are concerned about?

Hi, KiwiMoose! Yes, that's exactly right! This is the recipe I used. I did want 10% grapeseed oil, but I had to re-calculate using RBO, and the batter accelerated a little bit more than when I don't use RBO. I soaped at 95 F. Maybe I should soap even cooler next time, or maybe I stick blended too much.
I did use the correct amt of ingredients.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I use RBO at 20% in my recipe and don’t have problems with it. I don’t think 3% would cause acceleration. Maybe a little heavy handed on the stick blender?

 

[soapingfool]

I use RBO at 20% in my recipe and don’t have problems with it. I don’t think 3% would cause acceleration. Maybe a little heavy handed on the stick blender?

Yes, maybe that was it, I agree
But is there any way you know of to "save" this loaf, besides rebatching? TIA!

 

[earlene]

Since your oven is not working, the only suggestion I can come up with to avoid rebatching is technically a form of rebatching.

It involves adding new batter to what you have there to make a more uniform soap without (or fewer) air pockets.

So how you can do this would be to cut up this soap and use the pieces as embeds. The pieces can be large or small, but you would want to eliminate any air pockets, so the sizes may vary. You could slice very thin pieces or any way you like.

Then make up a new batch, but bring only to emulsion, or no further than light trace. You need it to be very fluid. I would leave it uncolored, but you could lightly color it if you choose. If you go for long slivers of (old) soap as embeds, then all you need to do is pour the new batter into a mold, and insert the long slivers down (I'd do it lengthwise) into the batter to create a new soap. You can angle them somewhat if you like.

If you choose smaller pieces as embeds, then I would suggest pre-coating with your very fluid batter (like you were mixing salad dressing onto a bowl of salad). Then pour a layer of the fluid batter into your mold & then start placing the pieces, tapping down the mold a few times to ensure air bubbles are released before adding another layer of batter & embeds.

When you finish up, insulate and add some heat to promote gel (or not, that's up to you.)

I've done this a few times & call it 'old & new soap' when I do it, but it really is a form of rebatching. But it doesn't require shredding or reheating and trying to melt the old soap.

 

[soapingfool]

Since your oven is not working, the only suggestion I can come up with to avoid rebatching is technically a form of rebatching.

It involves adding new batter to what you have there to make a more uniform soap without (or fewer) air pockets.

So how you can do this would be to cut up this soap and use the pieces as embeds. The pieces can be large or small, but you would want to eliminate any air pockets, so the sizes may vary. You could slice very thin pieces or any way you like.

Then make up a new batch, but bring only to emulsion, or no further than light trace. You need it to be very fluid. I would leave it uncolored, but you could lightly color it if you choose. If you go for long slivers of (old) soap as embeds, then all you need to do is pour the new batter into a mold, and insert the long slivers down (I'd do it lengthwise) into the batter to create a new soap. You can angle them somewhat if you like.

If you choose smaller pieces as embeds, then I would suggest pre-coating with your very fluid batter (like you were mixing salad dressing onto a bowl of salad). Then pour a layer of the fluid batter into your mold & then start placing the pieces, tapping down the mold a few times to ensure air bubbles are released before adding another layer of batter & embeds.

When you finish up, insulate and add some heat to promote gel (or not, that's up to you.)

I've done this a few times & call it 'old & new soap' when I do it, but it really is a form of rebatching. But it doesn't require shredding or reheating and trying to melt the old soap.

Hi earlene! Thank you so much! That sounds perfect. I think this is what I will do today. Thanks again!

 

[AliOop]

The other thing that can make a batch accelerate is oxidized oils (usually on the older side, or perhaps exposed to a lot of air, even inside the container). Your oils can be oxidized with no bad smell or other signs, except fast tracing.

If your RBO was oxidized, then it has a lot of free fatty acids, which saponify very quickly when the lye hits them. We see this when adding stearic acid to soaps - almost instant trace.

 

[soapingfool]

Hi AliOop! Thank you. Great info. I just opened this bottle of RBO that arrived from WSP (Wholesale Supplies Plus) 2 days ago. I've never ordered oils from WSP before, so this is my first time using their oils. I will try a tiny test batch using a higher % of their RBO and less mixing to see if it accelerates.

 

[soapingfool]

Hi AliOop! Thank you. Great info. I just opened this bottle of RBO that arrived from WSP (Wholesale Supplies Plus) 2 days ago. I've never ordered oils from WSP before, so this is my first time using their oils. I will try a tiny test batch using a higher % of their RBO and less mixing to see if it accelerates.

Actually, it came from Bulk Apothecary, not WSP.

 

[AliOop]

Some oils unfortunately are prone to quick oxidation, even under the best of conditions. RBO is one of those oils, so it might be worth keeping an eye on the next batch to see if you get fast trace with it again. Normally it is a slower-tracing oil, so too much stick-blending is another likely culprit.

 

[TheGecko]

Since there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the soap other than it accelerated, I'd kind of go with what @earlene said except that I would just shred the entire batch and then make three to four 'confetti' soaps with it.

If you have never made a 'confetti' soap, what you first want to do is weigh the amount of shredded soap that you want to use. Then using your Soap Calculator, put in your recipe for you size of mold and note your Total Batch Weight. Subtract the weight of the shreds from that and then adjust the Weight of Oils and then make your batter with the resized recipe. Only mix to emulsion, then add the shreds, stir in really well so all the shreds are coated and then pour and saponify.

An example of the math. My 10" Loaf Mold holds 50 oz Total Batch Weight and I normally use 34 oz Weight of Oils. My shreds weigh 12 oz...I would subtract from my Total Batch Weight: 50 oz - 12 oz = 38 oz. I would then go to SoapCalc (that is what I use), load my Recipe 2 (saved for that mold) and then subtract about a fourth of the Weight of Oils. How I came up a 'fourth' is because 38 / 50 = 0.76 or 3/4. So I enter 25 into my Weight of Oils, Calculate, View and see that my Total Batch Weight is 37.03 oz. So back to the Calculator and I change the 25 to 26 and now my Total is 38.51 oz. I can either say 'good enough' and have a cavity mold on the side for the extra or I can go back and see what 25.5 oz does...37.77 oz or even 25.75...38.14 oz.

BUTT...Total Batch Weight isn't my only consideration. 1) I don't mind being a little bit over because you always lose a little bit of batter no matter how well your scrape your stick blender, your bowl or your spatula. 2) Weighing out my oils. At 26 oz, my Olive Oil is 9.1 oz, but at 25.75, my Olive Oil is 9.0125. Sure I can go rounding-off, but why do all that extra work?