Need some help troubleshooting soap batch gone wrong

[happymom]

Hi everyone! I have been making soap for about two years, just for friends and family so only every other month or so. I have made a two batches of CP Goat's Milk soap and it is my favorite.

So I just made my first really unusable batch - and thinking through what I did wrong.

I wanted to make a Goat's Milk OMH batch for an event that is in a few weeks, so I knew I couldn't make it CP. So I decided to CPOP.

My goats milk was mostly slush, with a core of frozen milk. I added the lye slowly and mixed, until the frozen core melted. Added to my oils (80/20 OO and CO) and it traced nicely.

I put it in a box (I just use boxes for big molds) and some leftover batter went into a silicone bar mold - cooked it at 170 for an hour, turned off the oven and left it overnight. In the mold before cooking it looked fine, no different than other batches.

In the morning the top was an oily mess, both the big batch in the box and the little bars in the silicone mold. I turned them over and the bottom had a bright slick of orange, with bumps. So I assume the lye and oil just didn't combine, and the orange was lye, darkened by the color of the milk (not sure though).

I know I measured right. I combined OMH scents - half from a Brambleberry bottle and half from WSP because I ran out - I have done that before though.

So I think the mistake I made had to be with temperature - when I measured the temp of the milk/lye solution, the solution must have not been evenly distributed - must have still had hot/cold spots. My oil was 100 degrees and I know my solution could not have been hotter than that so I must have measured the temp in a warm spot, but the overall temp must have been colder.

So here are my two questions -

1. I thought if you combine and the temps are not within ten degrees, then the soap won't trace. But it was definitely tracing. Am I wrong about this?

2. I read that overheating can cause separation in milk soaps - so can you not CPOP milk soaps?

Thank you everyone! It will be worth the cost of ingredients as long as I know for sure what not to do next time. Now tonight I have to make another batch

 

[Obsidian]

1. I thought if you combine and the temps are not within ten degrees, then the soap won't trace. But it was definitely tracing. Am I wrong about this?

Yes, you are wrong about this. I've used hot lye and room temp oils with no troubles. Some people even use hot lye to melt their solid oils.

2. Is there anything else that can cause them not to combine, or to separate after trace?

Overheating is the most common cause of separation. When you say you cooked you soap in the oven, do you mean the oven was actually turned on while the soap was in it? If so, this was your problem.
When you CPOP, you heat the oven to 170, turn it off then put the soap in.
Also, doing CPOP or HP does not make your soap usable any sooner then CP. All handmade soap need to cure minimum 4 weeks. CPOP only speeds up the soaping process by a day or two at most.

The orange bits are probably burned milk, not harmful at all. You can probably save this batch by rebatching. Chop up the soap and put it plus all the oil/liquid off it into a crock pot and cook it on low until its like mashed potatoes then smoosh it into a mold.

 

[happymom]

Thank you

Thank you Obsidian! Now that I know what I did I will fix it next time - maybe just stick with CP milk soap. I read a post somewhere to that recommended CPOPing milk soaps in a cooler oven, like 140 degrees. I threw the soap away, it didn't occur to me to put it in the crock pot, I wish I had thought of that!

Thank you so much for helping me with this!

 

[Susie]

First rule of failed batches is not to throw them away until you have asked here.

I would not CPOP milk soaps, because I have too much trouble with them wanting to overheat without adding extra heat to it. I do not make enough milk soaps to help with any other info.

 

[Seawolfe]

It sounds like it overheated. CPOP doesn't really save you any cure time, and I've only had marginal luck with it, I'd be afraid to try it with a milk soap.