Pure lard CP batch: Smelly orange DISASTER ?!?

[Tufted Titmouse]

I'm 99% sure this was a disaster, since it my first ever batch of any kind of soap, I guess there is a tiny chance it's okay. Not that I would want to bathe with it or even touch it with a 10 foot pole.

I’d read so many descriptions on the net about pure lard soap being a pure white color and that sounded nice.

For my recipe, I thought I'd "keep it simple". So I used only 3 ingredients: rendered lard (nice and white and hard) from a friend's farm, pure lye crystals (yes it was real lye, I checked) from Ace Hardware and clean, clear water from our stream (we live in rural West Virginia). I checked the pH of the water, it was 6.5.

I used soapcalc and it gave me these figures:

Lard: 160 oz
Lye: 21.46 oz
Water: 60.8 oz

I used a digital kitchen scale and was very careful to measure accurately.

I used a modern soapmaking book from the library for the method. It said to heat the lard to 140 degrees, prepare the lye solution, then mix the two together with a stick blender until trace. Well, within only a few minutes, the mixture was an ugly, smelly pot full of what looked almost exactly like canned pureed pumpkin. “Heavy trace” was putting it mildly. This stuff was dark-orange, thick and nasty-looking and smelled like a barnyard. We mixed for another 5 or 8 minutes, then just shrugged sadly and poured it into the log molds we’d made earlier.

That was yesterday. Today the soap has lightened only to the colour of maybe light-brown sugar. It still smells like a barn. I don’t even want to go near it much less cut it into bars.

What happened? I'm so discouraged, not to mention kicking myself for making such a large batch and using up nearly half our lard supply. :cry: Now of course, I realize that I should have just made a small batch at first. I guess I just thought with soapcalc and these pure ingredients and following the instructions carefully that I'd surely have all these pretty pure-white bars and the end... :cry:

 

[jcandleattic]

I'm surprised it didn't seperate or overheat on you. I think the main thing you did "wrong" (and I wouldn't consider it wrong) was mixing the lye and lard way too hot.
you only need to melt the lard. It really does not have to be heated to 140. (unless you were rendering it yourself, and that I can't speak to, as I've never done that)

Other than that, I can't help. sorry. Maybe someone more experienced can come along and help out.

 

[abigtroutt]

I melt all my oils including lard until all a liquid then I let cool until about 100 to 110 deg. When melting the lard I then mix my water and lye and let that cool also to about 100 to 110 deg. Thats when I mix oils and lye and blend to trace. Seems like you mixed too hot and was the lye all disolved? and all your lard melted?

Dont give up!!! its lots of fun !!!

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

I melt all my oils including lard until all a liquid then I let cool until about 100 to 110 deg. When melting the lard I then mix my water and lye and let that cool also to about 100 to 110 deg. Thats when I mix oils and lye and blend to trace. Seems like you mixed too hot and was the lye all disolved? and all your lard melted?

Dont give up!!! its lots of fun !!!

Yes, everything was liquid and well-mixed. It does seem that everything being too hot may have been the problem. Darn that stupid library book, why did it say to heat it so high??

So, if excessive heat is/was the problem, have I ruined the ingredients? Any point in trying to rebatch? I'm gonna cry if I have to throw out 10 pounds of stuff! :cry:

And what about the barnyard smell?

 

[carebear]

well something is clearly wrong besides the temperatures (soaping 100% lye hot is fine - it's a SLOOOOOW tracer, tho that's a little hotter than even I woudl recommend) if it turned orange and stayed brown. was there any sugar or milk in the mix? perhaps the lard wasn't as clean as you thought - any odor to it? did your neighbor use anything other than water in the rendering?

and I'm pretty sure you know by now that testing a recipe with 10# of oils is not a great idea - I test at 2# - large enough to minimize the impact of small errors and small enough not to cost me as much as a college education...

 

[abigtroutt]

I never rebatched yet so you might try to research here on the forum.

Can you take pictures and post them. Is the orange a bright orange or a tan color? Is the soap hard yet and have you done the zap test to check for lye?

As for the barn smell thats the lard, do you have any EO's or FO's. If you rebatch you can add some then to cover the smell. You may want to cut it up into smaller batches and try rebatching with different EO's and FO's or maybe strong smelling herbs.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Also, just so no one thinks I mis-read the instruction, here is the book and also the page with the heating instructions:

 

[reallyrita]

Pure lard CP batch: smelly orange Disaster?!?

Always use just the lowest heat possible to melt lard or you will get that piggy barnyard smell. I use a double boiler and low heat...I let the hot water under the pan melt the lard gently, I watch it closely and as soon as it looks melted, I get it away from all heat. I don't know about the rest of your problem here but 140 degrees will bring out that pig smell in the best rendered lard. I presume your lard did not smell to begin with so it must have gotten way too hot at some point. I love lard in my soaps, it is so good to my skin. But, I watch it like a hawk while melting it.

 

[IrishLass]

I soap at 120 degreesF for my lard soaps, but that's only because I have other fats mixed in with the lard that need a higher melting temp to stay liquid throughout the soaping session. My lye temperature for these particular lard batches is at about 110-115 degreesF. I've never had a piggy smell or overheating at these temps- all has always gone well and smoothly for me, and I make a lot of lard batches.

If it was just 100% lard that I was using, I would only heat the lard on low until just melted, which is way lower than 140 degreesF. Also- I would let my lye cool down to about 100 to 100 degreesF before mixing in with the 100% lard. Here is a chart of the melting points of each particular kind of lard:

Melting point backfat: 30–40 °C (86–104 °F)

leaf fat: 43–48 °C (110–118 °F)

mixed fat: 36–45 °C (97–113 °F)

Smoke point 121-218 °C (250–425 °F)


It sounds like your lard may have gotten overheated. Heating it to 140 and then adding freshly mixed lye solution to it would bring the temp up even higher than 140, seeing as how fresh lye solution is very hot. Not to mention the added heat on top of that that comes from the normal chemical reaction that happens when lye and oils are mixed.

At this point, I wouldn't throw your soap out just yet. Let it sit and cure for awhile before making that decision. You'd be amazed what a good cure can do for some seemingly botched batches.

If after 4 to 6 weeks of curing it still smells like a barnyard, I would toss it if it were me. I wouldn't even try to rebatch it at that point for it may make it worse seeing as how you have to subject the soap to even further heat to melt it down. It's never easy to throw out a batch, believe me I know :cry:, especially 10 lbs. worth, but sometimes you just have to cut your losses and start afresh.

Next time, I would make a much smaller batch, say 2 lbs worth, to see how it goes before making a larger batch. It's much easier to throw away 2 lbs if it comes to that than 10 lbs.

I feel your pain! :cry:
IrishLass

 

[carebear]

I believed you - no need to prove it (are you related to my ex-husband? LOL)

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Thanks for the tips and question everyone. Yea, maybe there was something odd about the lard. I will ask the farmer next time I see him.

Here is a pic of the soap today (24 hours after making it), posed next to some other items for colour comparison. It doens't stink quite as bad as I expected but I sure wouldn't bathe or wash clothes with it, yuk.

Isn't it supposed to be white? Or does that happen as it cures?

 

[MikeInPdx]

I can't see pics here at this particular computer, but lard soap should be pure white.....mine has been as soon as it has set up.

 

[cdwinsby]

Next time try heating the harder oils first...like coconut, shea, etc. and then adding in softer oil like lard, palm. Once those are almost melted, I remove them from the heat. That's when I add in the liquid oils.

I tend to mix between 80 and 100 degrees depending on my recipe. I never go that high though some people do. I've never had a lard soap go brown and stinky either.. :shock: ...sorry your having trouble with that.

Like others have mentioned, you might want to stick with small batches until you are more familiar with the process. So much less painful (on the wallet anyway).

 

[Barb]

i'm not much help but there my thought. i use lard in about 50 percent of my soap batches and i add it as the last hard oil in my oil pot. i add the hardest one first since this will come in contact with the heat first and then work my way up to the softest of the hard oils. i melt on low and only until everything is almost melted and turn off the heat and hand stir till the rest is liquid i then add the liquid oils which help cool the others down so they are just luke warm and then add my cooled lye liquid. not the only way or the only right way it is just how i do it.

1i'm wondering if the lard just got to hot and started to burn

2was your lye water crystal clear when you added it to the lard. i just ask because i wonder if there was something in the water that caused it to turn dark.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

I think I have no choice but to throw the whole batch out. I had intended to cure soap in the laundryroom/pantry off the kitchen but there is no way this piggy stuff is staying in the house. The rest of our outbuildings are not heated and that means that the soap will freeze and thaw over and over again for the next several weeks. Which, I imagine would be bad. :shock:

I really feel like an idiot for making such a big batch my first time - but I really thought that with only three ingredients and carefully following the directions to the letter, it would work. In the past year, by carefully following directions, on the very first try we've learned to make our own bread, cheese (mozz, cheddar and colby), wine, beer and also grew a sucessful organic garden and grew all our own produce. In all this, we've NEVER had a disaster like this, so I guess I thought the soap wouldn't be any different. :?

Also, I was heeding the wise advice to have a healthy skepticism about anything you read on the internet - that's why I choose to use the instructions from a library book instead. You'd think someone knowledgeable enought about soap to write an entire book on it would know better than to tell people to heat lard to 140 degrees, then add a steaming hot lye solution to it. :roll:

Oh well. Live and learn. At least the lard didn't cost us anything, it was a freebie, so all we're out is about 5 bucks worth of lye. Could have been worse. I'm going to try another (much smaller) batch tomorrow with just a pound or two of lard and this time I will NOT overheat it! :shock:

I really appreciate everyone's advice here, this is obviously a great source of soaping knowledge, screw the library (just kidding). :wink:

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

1i'm wondering if the lard just got to hot and started to burn

2was your lye water crystal clear when you added it to the lard. i just ask because i wonder if there was something in the water that caused it to turn dark.

Maybe. It didn't smell burnt as much as just...piggy as we heated it.

Yes, the lye solution was crystal clear when we added it to the hot :shock: lard.

 

[Barb]

here's a site that is good to start with:

good luck with the next one.


http://www.millersoap.com/soapanimal.html

 

[IrishLass]

Also, I was heeding the wise advice to have a healthy skepticism about anything you read on the internet - that's why I choose to use the instructions from a library book instead.

I totally understand- it's not a bad idea to have a healthy dose of skepticism where the internet is concerned.......and books, too! :wink:

The nice thing about these internet soaping forums, though, is that you are getting a more rounded soaping education from a variety of experienced soapers 'real time' chiming in with their collective wisdom. There is a lot to that old saying which asserts that there is wisdom in the counsel of many. With a book, you are more than likely getting only one person's perspective who may or may not be writing with the best, most up-to-date knowledge, as wonderful a soaper that they are and as well meaning as they may be. Many soaping rules 'so called' that have been perpetuated in some of the soaping books out there have recently been soundly busted as myths through more up-to-date experimentation and testing. Just type 'soaping myths in a search engine on a soaping forum to see.

My advice to anyone wanting to make soap is to do what I did: devour every forum thread that you can on soaping. Listen to all the questions posted and all the arguments posted back and forth by all the wonderful and knowledgable soapers, and all the results that they post. Just soak it in and take many notes. I guarantee that you will learn so much more about soaping than every soaping book out there combined can teach you.

Happy soaping!

IrishLass

 

[jbarad]

Maybe. It didn't smell burnt as much as just...piggy as we heated it.

Where did you get the lard you used for the soap ?

I bought some lard a week or so ago from the local butcher shop, it was 100% different than the lard I get at the grocery store. It was more of a tan color, softer, and way smellier. The grocery store lard is very solid, virtually no smell, and very white.

I did make a small batch of soap with the butcher shop lard and it came out brownish and smelly like yours. I tossed it, YUCK ! The soap I make with the grocery store lard is very nice, no smell and definitely white.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Maybe. It didn't smell burnt as much as just...piggy as we heated it.

Where did you get the lard you used for the soap ?

We got 5 gallons of lard from a farmer friend after hog-butchering this past fall. It looks pure white but yes it does smell a bit piggy...