Newbie help with first batch!

[angemarie]

Hi Everyone

I'm Ange from New Zealand!
I joined your wonderful forum some weeks ago and have done lots of reading in preparation for making my very first batch but still have a few questions before I start. I would be most grateful if anyone would be able to answer a few questions for me!

I finally decided on two recipes I would like to make and ran them both through the BrambleBerry Lye calc, as I wanted to double check it I then ran them through SoapCalc but got different amounts for the water and Lye (both recipes were 5% super fat) Below are the recipes I ran through and I am working in grams.

Recipe 1
7% Castor
13% Cocoa Butter
20% Coconut
30% Olive
20% Palm
10% Shea
BB said 137.902gm Lye & 330gm water
SoapCalc said 138.128gm Lye & 380gm water

Recipe 2
10% Sweet Almond
5% Castor
20% Coconut
15% Olive
25% Palm
25% Rice Bran
BB said 136.372gm Lye & 330gm water
SoapCalc said 136.759gm Lye & 380gm water

I noticed there is not too much of a difference but my question is which one do I go with? Also do you think my recipes look ok? I have noted that soapcalc gives you a suggested range for the soap quality of your recipe and just wanted to know if it is important to adjust your recipe to fit in the suggested ranges? I have read a bit about the different hard/soft oils so have tries to take that into consideration when building my recipe but as I am not experienced I would love some feed back to see if I am on the right track.

The other question I have is about the best soap temp, with all the reading I have done I have found soaping temps vary a lot between soapers....could you please advise me what the best temp would be? (I will be working in Celsius not Fahrenheit)
My last question is about GEL and was wondering if you could clarify this for me please.......If I want my soap to gel do I insulate and keep warm? If I don't want it to gel do I keep cool? If I didn't want it to gel do I have to put in the fridge/freezer or leave out in a cool place?

Thanking you in advance!! I would very much appreciate any advise!:smile:

 

[kazmi]

Welcome Angemarie! Both of your recipes look great so it really depends on what you are looking for in your soap. Try one to start out. Then next time (there WILL be a next time - it's addicting!) try the other to see the difference and then you can decide. The numbers that come out of the calculators are a good reference but you really won't know what you truly like until you try it. As far as the difference in amount of lye/water that the calculators tell you, did you plug in different SF or lye discounts? I believe that each calculator has different defaults so you would get different numbers unless you overroad their defaults.
As far as soaping temperatures, it depends on how you like to soap. Would you like to be able to make your lye/water in advance then go back to soaping later? Keep in mind that it will take awhile for the lye/water to cool down so it will depend on what you have going on that day. Then consider doing RTCP (room temp cp). If you are doing swirls (later you're ready for that) then RTCP is said to be better for that. Other than that the 'best' temps are lye/water being cooled off to less than what you will see when you add the lye to your water (shoot for less than 140 deg F - sorry don't know what that is in C). I've read books that say your oils should be within 10 deg F from your lye/water. I typically either do RTCP or soap when my lye/water is less than 100 deg F (and don't worry about what temp my oils are at since I've heated up my hard oils in advance).
As far as gell, yes keep your molded soap insulated with towels or a blanket (and don't peak! LOL at least for the first couple of hours). If you want to avoid gell either do the freezer/fridge method or just let your molded soap sit somewhere safe and as long as you don't see it going into gell you're ok. If you do, throw it in the freezer over night.
hth

 

[angemarie]

Welcome Angemarie! Both of your recipes look great so it really depends on what you are looking for in your soap. Try one to start out. Then next time (there WILL be a next time - it's addicting!) try the other to see the difference and then you can decide. The numbers that come out of the calculators are a good reference but you really won't know what you truly like until you try it. As far as the difference in amount of lye/water that the calculators tell you, did you plug in different SF or lye discounts? I believe that each calculator has different defaults so you would get different numbers unless you overroad their defaults.
As far as soaping temperatures, it depends on how you like to soap. Would you like to be able to make your lye/water in advance then go back to soaping later? Keep in mind that it will take awhile for the lye/water to cool down so it will depend on what you have going on that day. Then consider doing RTCP (room temp cp). If you are doing swirls (later you're ready for that) then RTCP is said to be better for that. Other than that the 'best' temps are lye/water being cooled off to less than what you will see when you add the lye to your water (shoot for less than 140 deg F - sorry don't know what that is in C). I've read books that say your oils should be within 10 deg F from your lye/water. I typically either do RTCP or soap when my lye/water is less than 100 deg F (and don't worry about what temp my oils are at since I've heated up my hard oils in advance).
As far as gell, yes keep your molded soap insulated with towels or a blanket (and don't peak! LOL at least for the first couple of hours). If you want to avoid gell either do the freezer/fridge method or just let your molded soap sit somewhere safe and as long as you don't see it going into gell you're ok. If you do, throw it in the freezer over night.
hth

Thank you very much for your helpful reply Kazmi!!

On both calculators I put in 5% SF, I noted that soapcalc has a default of 38% for water as percentage of oils but the BB didn't have that option so agree with you saying they may have different defaults. Think I may stick with SoapCalc as I do like all the info it gives you. Do you have a preference on which calc you use?
Thanks for your info on temps, I would prefer to make lye/water and use straight away.Thank you for mentioning RTCP! I have done a bit of reading about this method and it appeals to me not having to be exact with temps...have you had good success with RTCP?
Thanks for clarifying gell for me! I am super excited to get started but just wanted to be 100% sure on these things before I start!
Again thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post...I very much appreciate it!

 

[Saswede]

Hi Angemarie and welcome!
You've already had some great explanations from kazmi, but I thought I'd also step in to put your mind at rest about the amount of lye ....! If you look at the 2 weights proposed by the 2 lye calculators, you'll see that either would be rounded up or down to 138g. And as most of the scales we use are accurate to within 1g, I'd say that the 2 "different" amounts are pretty much the same If you do have any worries, you could always increase your super fat a little to ensure that you don't have any unused lye remaining in your cured soap. For most recipes like the ones you've proposed, I'd usually use around 6 to 8% super fat.
As kazmi says, soaping temperature is a matter of choice - so you could try one of them at or near to room temp, and the other a little warmer to see what you prefer. And the same goes for the gel vs don't gel question - try putting the room temp experimental batch in the fridge to avoid gel, and wrapping the soap you make at a higher temperature to get it to gel.
Keep an open mind and experiment to see what works best for you.
Good luck, and happy soaping!


Sent from my iPad using Soap Making

 

[Skatergirl46]

Hi and welcome to a fun and productive hobby! Um, addiction :Kitten Love: Part of the fun for me about soap making is the endless possibilities. I love figuring out the recipes to make the soap just what I like. I started out with two recipes from other people so that I could make a batch with a tried and true recipe. It helped me have a baseline for starting to understand the soap calc. numbers too. I've mostly done HP, but I want to be experienced and proficient with other methods as well. Good luck with your first batch and have fun! The best part is when you get to try that cured bar that you made yourself.

 

[angemarie]

Hi Angemarie and welcome!
You've already had some great explanations from kazmi, but I thought I'd also step in to put your mind at rest about the amount of lye ....! If you look at the 2 weights proposed by the 2 lye calculators, you'll see that either would be rounded up or down to 138g. And as most of the scales we use are accurate to within 1g, I'd say that the 2 "different" amounts are pretty much the same If you do have any worries, you could always increase your super fat a little to ensure that you don't have any unused lye remaining in your cured soap. For most recipes like the ones you've proposed, I'd usually use around 6 to 8% super fat.
As kazmi says, soaping temperature is a matter of choice - so you could try one of them at or near to room temp, and the other a little warmer to see what you prefer. And the same goes for the gel vs don't gel question - try putting the room temp experimental batch in the fridge to avoid gel, and wrapping the soap you make at a higher temperature to get it to gel.
Keep an open mind and experiment to see what works best for you.
Good luck, and happy soaping!


Sent from my iPad using Soap Making

Hi Saswede

Thank you so very much for all that helpful info, I will def give your ideas a try and let you know how it goes!

 

[angemarie]

Hi and welcome to a fun and productive hobby! Um, addiction :Kitten Love: Part of the fun for me about soap making is the endless possibilities. I love figuring out the recipes to make the soap just what I like. I started out with two recipes from other people so that I could make a batch with a tried and true recipe. It helped me have a baseline for starting to understand the soap calc. numbers too. I've mostly done HP, but I want to be experienced and proficient with other methods as well. Good luck with your first batch and have fun! The best part is when you get to try that cured bar that you made yourself.

Hey...thanks very much for your reply, oh yes it's very addictive...I cant stop thinking about soap lol, cant wait to try out all these great ideas!