Liquid soap no flying bubble stage

[Silver]

Dear soap makers!
Hubby has asked me to make him a batch of liquid soap, and after checking out a couple of very detailed posts on this forum I decide to give it a try! This is what I used: 65g Olive oil, 25 g Coconut oil, 10 g Castor oil, 20 g Potassium Hydroxide, 65 g Glycerin. I boiled the Potassium Hydroxide in glycerin for around 8 minutes until fully dissolved, added it to my warm oils and blended it while on the look out for flying bubbles. After some stick blending what I ended up getting was thick, yellow, sticky and very taffy like, which is supposed to have come much later in the process. What went wrong? Can the batch still be saved?
Many thanks,
Silver

 

[doriettefarm]

Your recipe and process sound okay to me. I usually just stickblend until batter starts to emulsify and no longer separates. From there I use a whisk and it's typically at that time I see the flying bubbles if they're going to happen. It very quickly goes from being whisk-able to the taffy state you described (which is why I remove my stickblender early so it doesn't get stuck). I would just put the lid on the pot and zap test in the morning.

 

[Silver]

Oh I see, I probably just missed the bubble stage and over blended. I will leave it for the night and see how it zaps in the morning. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Susie]

I never get to see flying bubbles. Mine goes straight from liquid to thick paste. It is still zap free in a short while.

 

[Dana89]

I made some a few weeks ago according to IL,s instruction. I blended and it was getting really thick, but I had to stop for 2 minutes to use the bathroom and I had Taffy when I cane back. So I wrote an sos on here because I missed the flying bubbles stage too. It turned out fine, it stopped zapping in a couple of hours so I diluted in the crockpot on warm overnight. Everything turned out fine.

 

[IrishLass]

Yep- don't get concerned if you don't see the flying bubble stage. Some see it, some don't. The most important thing is that you ended up with paste/taffy.


IrishLass

 

[lsg]

I don't get the flying bubbles either. My soap paste has to set for at least 24 hours before it is ready.

 

[DeeAnna]

If someone had not posted a photo of real, live "flying bubbles", I would still be a non-believer. Never seen 'em personally. But my soap turns out fine!

 

[kchaystack]

https://youtu.be/HTwuLgNXv7s

 

[IrishLass]

https://youtu.be/HTwuLgNXv7s

Oh, my! That brings back memories of many a Sunday evening spent at my grandparent's house when we were kids! I don't think they ever missed an episode, which means that me and my siblings never missed an episode either. lol


IrishLass

 

[doriettefarm]

Me too IL! I remember watching Lawrence Welk with my granny and helping her work crossword puzzles . . . good times

 

[Silver]

Thank you all for your input! I also had difficulty imagining just what exactly 'flying bubble stage' might look like having never worked with liquid soap before, so I watched a video of it... and indeed, that really is about the best way to describe it! Unfortunately, after having waited a day and a half the taffy still zaps. I imagine I must have messed up at the very first stage and let the glycerin and pot ash cook too hot and evaporated too much of the glycerin but that's just a wild guess. What are my options at this point? I was thinking of diluting it with water and then trying to neutralize the soap with a teaspoon of borax. Would that work?

 

[Susie]

If you have zap, you have too much lye for too little oil. That is what I would address. Add 15 g oil, and about that much water to the pot/crockpot, and cook it. Stir and cook for about an hour (make sure that oil is good and mixed in), then zap test. Repeat as needed until it stops zapping. Then figure out what happened to your recipe or scale. Something is off somewhere.

The first issue I would look at is not making such small batches. Very small errors in weighing can cause unexpected consequences. Like zapping.

 

[IrishLass]

If you have zap, you have too much lye for too little oil.

This^^^^. The glycerin actually has nothing to do with it. Zap is all about the relationship between the lye and the oils.

I second the excellent advice Susie gave you.


IrishLass