I want to make a soap with lily of the valley FO from BB and can't see anything in the reviews about acceleration. Has anyone used it and what was your experience?
I was able to find 2 reviews here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Rf1M/edit?authkey=CMTEtswL&pref=2&pli=1#gid=6 One soaper said it accelerates 'some', and another said it accelerates 'a little', but unfortunately, neither mention how much water they used or how hot they soaped their batches, which are very helpful things to know.
I figured I ought to soap cooler anyway just to be on the safe side and have been reading that some people soap at room temp, or at least leave their lye out overnight so it at least is room temp. My house is very cold, I turn the thermostat down to 61F at night. If I use cold lye water in warm (say, 90-100F) soap batter, is that going to be a problem? I know CO won't re-harden until 76F but what about butters? I haven't decided on a recipe yet, but thought I'd ask before trying to figure one up
I agree with Steve, soaping cooler or at room temp can have its drawbacks, depending on your formula. For example, I cannot soap my two favorite formulas anywhere below 110F. If I do, I get pseudo-trace and stearic spots. I have a goodly amount of butters, as well as hydrogenated PKO in those particular two.
For what it's worth, if you make your lye solution and let it cool overnight, you can always warm it back up to your preferred temp by placing the solution container in a hot water bath. That's what I do. I master-batch my lye solution in large quantities- enough to last me for several weeks or sometimes even months- so it's always cold or room temp (depending on the time of year). I just fill a bowl with good heat retention up with very hot water, then I place my lye solution container in the bowl to warm the solution up to the temp I need. (usually takes 20 minutes- about the same amount of time it takes to melt my solid fats). Whatever you do, don't heat the solution on the stove- just let it gently warm up in a hot water bath. Change the hot water out as needed until your solution is warm enough to your liking.
Also for cooler soap/less acceleration do I want a higher or lower lye concentration? I've been using soapcalc's standard 38% water, (in my whole 3 batches of experience, lol) but after reading much on here I think I want to switch to lye% instead and my head is so full of reading I'm not sure what to do! :-?
Thanks for ANY help!!
I personally would get used to using the 'lye concentration' box no matter how much or little water you want to add. It's more accurate and consistent than basing your water amount on the % of the oils.
A 'full water' amount in 'lye concentration' terms is pretty much anything from a 25% to a 28% lye concentration. Whether 25, 26, 27, or 28% will depend on each individual soaper and/or whether they are making CP or HP, but for what it's worth, whenever I want to use a 'full water' amount in my CP or HP batches, I type 28% in the lye concentration box, which is the most water I ever like to use in any of my CP or HP formulas. Any more than that, then it takes forever and a day for my soap to harden and the bars tend to warp something awful during cure.
Whenever I make
liquid soap, though, I use a 25% lye concentration because that particular amount gives me smooth sailing in my liquid soap.
As for what particular concentration works best for cooler batches/less acceleration, the best thing to remember is that the higher the lye concentration, the faster things will move/accelerate.
For what it's worth, a 33% lye concentration is considered somewhat of a baseline concentration in that many soapers use it more than any other concentration because of how nicely things proceed with it. I call it my 'Goldilocks' concentration because it's not too fast and it's not too slow.....it's just right. It works quite well with all of my formulas and for the vast amount of my FOs............... but I do have to adjust it every so often to account for the occasional ornery FO. If I know I'll be working with a troublesome FO, I'll just use more water, which means I'll lower my lye concentration from 33% down to a 'full water' amount (28%), or maybe I'll lower it just to a 31% concentration instead if I know I can get away with it.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can increase your concentration from 33% to about 40% or 45% if your fats/FO allow it, such as with 100% OO Castiles.
For what it's worth, I never adjust how hot I normally soap in my 2 favorite formulas. I need to keep the temp up because of the hard fats in them, so I only ever mess with the water amount/concentration, which happily does the trick at keeping most of my troublesome FOs in line. The rare ones that are still troublesome no matter how much water I add get their stubborn selves HP'd.
IrishLass
