More Pink Soap

[CathyB]

My soap is turning pink too (previous thread in April about pink soap)! It happened after emulsification, and I had let it set for less than one minute while I put in additives.

I've been using tallow for my soap but am using lard right now, so that was one big change I made. The other was I changed brands of Lye (I'm the one who reviewed Lehman's), so I'm working with two unknowns.

The first time it happened, I thought I just had messed something up. But it happened again today.

I'm going to order some tried and true lye immediately to see if the problem recurs. I wet rendered and didn't add anything at all, but that will tell me the culprit if it is either.

The soap has been soft, but I attributed that to the lard being a softer fat than tallow, and just let it sit longer before cutting.

 

[CathyB]

Well, it's not the lye. I made a batch of tallow soap, no lard, and it was lovely and white. Made a 100% lard batch, and discoloration began, but not as pronounced.

My current theory is that, for my first batch of lard I rendered, I added baking powder because it was supposed to help prevent piggy smell. I'll bet that is the lard I'm using, but will conduct more experiments with baking soda and lye (very dilute) and research. Worst case scenario, I have 9 gal of pink lard.

But the wonderful news is that the Lehman's lye absolutely did not contribute to the problem.

And I learned not to do something just because it's on the internet.

 

[AliOop]

@CathyB thank you for sharing your experiences. A few questions:

1. Your first sentence in the second paragraph, above, says that you used baking POWDER, which is something I've not previously heard of doing with lard. Perhaps was a typo because the next sentence mentions baking SODA; can you clarify?

2. From what you wrote, it sounds as if you added the baking soda (or powder, as the case may be), directly to the lard, and then used that lard + baking soda/powder in making the soap. Is that correct?

I have never used baking powder, but have used baking soda and salt to de-stink my lard. However, I have never added these directly to the lard. Rather, I dissolved it in the water I used to "clean" the lard after rendering. After the cleaning (heating the water just below a boil, with the oil on top of it), that water was strained off to remove impurities. Supposedly no baking powder or salt would be left in the lard, only in the strained-off water.

Disclaimer: I could be way off base in my understanding of how this all is supposed to work, and whether any of this even relates to the pinkness of your lard. Hopefully someone else with more chemistry knowledge than I have will be able to assist here.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you used baking soda along with some water for rendering, the soda will either get rinsed out with the water or it will react with free fatty acids in the lard to make soap.

In my experiences with rendering lard with soda, the soda can react with the fat to form a foamy scum on top of the fat (probably soap mixed with other bits and pieces). This scum can be skimmed off to help remove impurities from the fat.

I don't normally use soda if the fat is clean and sweet (mild odor), but I rendered some bacon fat recently and added soda to remove color and odor. I can't think of why baking soda should turn your soap pink. If it can do that, then I'm in for some pink soap too when I use this cleaned-up former bacon fat.

If you used baking powder, I'm not sure what effect that might have.