No-blender recipes

[Blufuz]

Hi everyone!
I’m fairly new to CP soap making, and I’m trying to learn as many new tricks as possible.

The other day, my stick blender broke, and it will be a couple weeks before I can replace it. In the mean time, does anyone have any recipes or techniques that bring CP soap to trace so quickly you can get by with a spatula?
I wouldn’t mind HP, but I don’t have a crockpot or infinite patience.

Thank you!

 

[AliOop]

Soaping a little warmer will help. You might even try the heat transfer method, as long as you don’t have big chunks of hard fats or butters to start with.

You could also try using a lye concentration between 34-38% (less water than the typical 33%). I find that trace starts slowing down again when I go over 38%, but not everyone experiences that, so go slowly with increasing the lye concentration to start.

Oops, I forgot to mention that a whisk will probably get the batter to trace faster than a spatula.

 

[TheGecko]

As long as your hand mixer has stainless steel beaters, you can use them. But you want to use the lowest setting since beaters tend to incorporate air.

And a whisk is better than a spatula. Just be prepared to stir for awhile.

 

[CreativeWeirdo]

Just be VERY careful about splashes!!!

 

[cmzaha]

Hi everyone!
I’m fairly new to CP soap making, and I’m trying to learn as many new tricks as possible.

The other day, my stick blender broke, and it will be a couple weeks before I can replace it. In the mean time, does anyone have any recipes or techniques that bring CP soap to trace so quickly you can get by with a spatula?
I wouldn’t mind HP, but I don’t have a crockpot or infinite patience.

Thank you!

If you use palm oil or cocoa butter your batter will trace faster. Tallow will also help

 

[Blufuz]

In the end, I went with this recipe:

How to Make Gentle Hemp and Shea Soap - Humblebee & Me

After a few weeks of some fancy-pants, layered-up, Christmas themed soaps, I fancied a bit of a rustic break. A simple to make, quick-to-assemble, low-fuss bar soap made with some lovely oils and butters, lots of creamy clay, and no … Continue reading →

www.humblebeeandme.com

With the oils at 50 C, using a whisk, and palm oil instead of tallow. I used a kilo of oils, split the batter into 4, and tried adding different amounts of kaolin clay to see what would happen.

The soap actually reached trace faster than some of the olive-oil based soaps I’ve made with a blender, but never got quite as smooth. When I added the kaolin clay, I put it directly on the soap without diluting in oil or water first; but I passed it through a sieve to avoid clumps. In my quarter batter to which I added 4 tbsp of clay, this was a problem, since the clay remained as little speckles, whereas the batter with 1 and 2 tbsp were fairly well mixed. Now I wait and see…

 

[CreativeWeirdo]

In my quarter batter to which I added 4 tbsp of clay, this was a problem, since the clay remained as little speckles, whereas the batter with 1 and 2 tbsp were fairly well mixed.

Wow!

I usually use 2 Tbsp for my 1000 g of oils; I use 1Tbsp for my gardener's soap because I also add 1 Tbsp Activated Charcoal.

Oh! And I add the Kaolin clay to my lye-water solution, which I find helps prevent clumps.

 

[AliOop]

@CreativeWeirdo Agreed, I also prefer to hydrate the clays in some of the batch water, or even make a slurry with some of the batch oils. That helps to prevent speckles and clumps, for sure

 

[Catscankim]

Clays for colorants I will soak in a little water. But my kaolin clay that goes into the whole batch: I dump it all into the melted warm oils and sb for a minute, then again if needed. By the time the oils and lye are cool enough, it is pretty much incorporated.

 

[AliOop]

Clays for colorants I will soak in a little water. But my kaolin clay that goes into the whole batch: I dump it all into the melted warm oils and sb for a minute, then again if needed. By the time the oils and lye are cool enough, it is pretty much incorporated.

Yup, that works, too. My understanding is that @Blufuz blended the clay into the already-mixed batter, which for me, always leaves clumps or specks.

 

[Blufuz]

between placing the clay in the lye water or oils is there a difference in outcome? I think I would go for mixing it in with the oils so that I can still see if the lye is not well dissolved.

For this batch, since I was trying different amounts for each fraction, it wouldn’t have worked, especially since the 4tbsp of clay would have required substantially more oil and water, but now I know! Thank you

 

[Blufuz]

So I got sort of the opposite effect of what I was expecting.

I set aside a little bit of each batch in individual molds to properly test the effects of different clay quantities. The rest I layered in a log mold, with the lowest layer containing no clay, and the upper layer the most clay (4 layers in order). I then kept it in my pre-warmed oven at 50C to encourage the gel phase for 6h. This is what I got:

Aside from the speckles, the soap with more (white) kaolin clay turned out darker! Why is that? Did the gelling turn out to be layer-specific? And what’s happening at the interfaces?

 

[Ephemerella]

Very interesting and so glad you shared this! How does the bar feel with all that clay? Is it grainy/gritty or drying?

You may be getting the change in color from the relationship of the clay and the available water... this is an interesting read:

The Ghost Swirl

Beautifully swirled soap without the use of any colourant at all? Impossible? Possible. Auntie Clara shows you how she does the Ghost Swirl.

auntieclaras.com

 

[Blufuz]

Very interesting and so glad you shared this! How does the bar feel with all that clay? Is it grainy/gritty or drying?

You may be getting the change in color from the relationship of the clay and the available water... this is an interesting read:

The Ghost Swirl

Beautifully swirled soap without the use of any colourant at all? Impossible? Possible. Auntie Clara shows you how she does the Ghost Swirl.

auntieclaras.com

Not at all! It feels just like any other soap I made. The part with most clay is marginally less slippery, but not in any way abrasive like pumice powder in soap. As I mention in this thread, I tried a soap with even more clay, but used French green clay instead, and it was a little bit rougher, but just enough that the bar doesn’t slip out of your hand, not so much that it is unpleasant to use.