My first rebatch!!

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

andreabadgley

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2007
Messages
229
Reaction score
1
Location
Tampa, FL
Hi everyone,

I had my first successful rebatch yesterday. Woohoo!!! I had a soap that was giving me problems, and I tried a rebatch with the boil in bag method. The problem was that I actually *boiled* the water instead of keeping it just under a boil, and my bags melted. What a pain! If you do the boil in bag method, make sure you don't get the water too hot! Anyway, so I lost the batch into the pot of boiling water. Not pretty.

Well, I tried the recipe again because it's one I really like. And again it didn't work. It's a grapefruit and ginger soap inspired by the Laughing Buddha. It has worked in the past, but I decided to double the amount of grapefruit EO because the scent was too light. After bringing the soap to trace, I added the scent, then poured. Next day, the soap had a layer of liquid on top and a solid layer of white on the bottom. I'm guessing now (after reading a bunch of posts here on the forum) that the EO thinned the soap and I should have brought it back up to trace again. Rookie mistake.

So I decided to try to rebatch (again), but this time I used the crock pot. I grated the soap, smooshed it down into the CP, added 1.5 ounces of Olive Oil (the amount of liquid I sucked off of the top of the soap), and set the CP on low for three hours. I stirred about every 15 minutes because I was paranoid about it burning, and it seemed to be taking forever to melt. So, of course, I made my way back to the forum (after about 2 hours of watching it S L O W L Y melt) and found that I should have had it on high and I should have added water. SOOO I set the CP on high after about 2.5 hours on low, added 1 Tbs water for each pound of soap, and stirred about every 10 minutes (is all this stirring necessary to keep it from burning?).

And what do you know - it worked! I am SO excited that it worked!!! I threw in a little more EO just for the heck of it, glopped it all into the mold, smooshed it down, and the next day it was hard. YAY!!! I love the way it feels - more gel-like than the cold process - and it smells wonderful. I actually like the kind of gloppy look, too.

So thank you all for so many helpful posts. I've taken the next step in my soap making! Now I'm ready to attempt hot process.
 
andreabadgley said:
Hi everyone,

I had my first successful rebatch yesterday. Woohoo!!! I had a soap that was giving me problems, and I tried a rebatch with the boil in bag method. The problem was that I actually *boiled* the water instead of keeping it just under a boil, and my bags melted. What a pain! If you do the boil in bag method, make sure you don't get the water too hot! Anyway, so I lost the batch into the pot of boiling water. Not pretty.

Well, I tried the recipe again because it's one I really like. And again it didn't work. It's a grapefruit and ginger soap inspired by the Laughing Buddha. It has worked in the past, but I decided to double the amount of grapefruit EO because the scent was too light. After bringing the soap to trace, I added the scent, then poured. Next day, the soap had a layer of liquid on top and a solid layer of white on the bottom. I'm guessing now (after reading a bunch of posts here on the forum) that the EO thinned the soap and I should have brought it back up to trace again. Rookie mistake.

So I decided to try to rebatch (again), but this time I used the crock pot. I grated the soap, smooshed it down into the CP, added 1.5 ounces of Olive Oil (the amount of liquid I sucked off of the top of the soap), and set the CP on low for three hours. I stirred about every 15 minutes because I was paranoid about it burning, and it seemed to be taking forever to melt. So, of course, I made my way back to the forum (after about 2 hours of watching it S L O W L Y melt) and found that I should have had it on high and I should have added water. SOOO I set the CP on high after about 2.5 hours on low, added 1 Tbs water for each pound of soap, and stirred about every 10 minutes (is all this stirring necessary to keep it from burning?).

And what do you know - it worked! I am SO excited that it worked!!! I threw in a little more EO just for the heck of it, glopped it all into the mold, smooshed it down, and the next day it was hard. YAY!!! I love the way it feels - more gel-like than the cold process - and it smells wonderful. I actually like the kind of gloppy look, too.

So thank you all for so many helpful posts. I've taken the next step in my soap making! Now I'm ready to attempt hot process.

Wow congratulations! You did the write thing in not adding so much water and thats why yours set up so quickly. I know your happy you didn't waste any soap! Yea in the crockpot can take forever and a day which is why my preferred method is oven. But, when I have a lot of batches to do I use both methods at the same time. Since today is beautiful and sunny I'm going to try to grate some soap and do a tutorial! Great soaping!
 
Woo-hoo!!! Good for you!!! So...........where are the pics? :lol:

Digit
 
digit said:
Woo-hoo!!! Good for you!!! So...........where are the pics? :lol:

Digit

I haven't figured out the picture feature yet in the forum. I'm gonna work on it, though. I've already got the bars cut and wrapped - that rebatch thing is great that way! I used the soap the next day and it was awesome.
 
Congrats on your rebatch success! Little tip...the liquid you took off of the top could have been poured back into the rebatch, without having to add any more oils. That has happened to me on more than one occasion and I just poured it back into the pot and had a successful rebatch.
 
Andrea, your rebatched soap looks much better than my first rebatch attempt, LOL. Good job!
 
Oh they look so nice! Good work! When you said "gloppy", I was expecting something else but those really look great! WTG!
 
Back
Top