salting or boil off glycerin?

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ryanbmw

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Hi all, I'm new to the soap making world and process. I'm trying to learn about removing the glycerin from the soapification process. I have read about "salting" or "boiling it off" both of the articles I have read have not been real specfic on detail. I will be making soap HP. Anyone that could elaborate would be greatly appreciated.
 
This soap is designed to be an oral soap, glycering coats teeth which I do not want, therefore I need to eliminate glycerin from my soap.
 
I have done this and it is quite interesting, and the soap actually feels really good after it is done. i would not want the yucky brown liquid, from the salting, out on my teeth either!!

This is from Zany in the soaps- n- lotions forum: I don't have any notes from when I tried this technique, but I do remember it was fun and pretty easy to do. Just trust your own judgment and go for it. Takes all of about 15 minutes.

Grate an 8 oz. bar of soap. Add it to a pot of "Sea Water" (1 oz. sea salt in 32 oz. water) at a rolling boil. The result is almost instantaneous. The soap curdles and the curds rise to the top, leaving a brown gunky water on the bottom of the pan.

Skim the curds off or pour through a strainer and let it "drip dry". Once it was cool enough to handle, I put it in a nylon hose and hung it on a banana holder near the kitchen sink (real technical, I know -- use your imagination to come up with something similar). I formed the soap into a ball and squeezed and shaped it daily to get all the water out. It is difficult to shape at first as the curds don't want to stick, but they do hold together once it dries out a bit. Once all the water is out, take it out of the hose and set it out to cure.

The end result was a hard ball of so-called "pure" soap... the nicest soap I've ever made. But then, I'm in Denver and our dry climate is not kind to skin... I was happy to pour the brown water with the glycerin and whatever other impurities in there, right down the drain. Glycerin draws moisture from the air to the skin. If there is no moisture in the air, it draws it from the skin. YIKES!

I did 3 batches and made 3 balls. The last batch was an OO castile bar and it took the longest to dry and cure. Oh, and one other thing... you lose about a third of the soap you start with.

Hopefully Cee won't strangle me for copying her post...:)
 
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Hey, great reply that will help tremendously. That process is similar to what I was guessing but deffinatly reassured me. Do you know or think that if once you skimmed the soap off the top you could remelt the soap and pour it into molds?
 
Nice post! I have been doing some experimenting with salting out soap. I used way too much salt apparently. I had about 26% of salt instead of 3% you have. All that excess of salt really kills the lather. What would be the optimal amount for Castile?
 
Hey, great reply that will help tremendously. That process is similar to what I was guessing but deffinatly reassured me. Do you know or think that if once you skimmed the soap off the top you could remelt the soap and pour it into molds?

Soap is to some parts melting because of the glycerine. The new product is much more difficult to put in forms. In old times, they had forms with many holes in, I read. They then put a cloth into the form, so the soap would slowly leak out the water.
 
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I salted out a couple coffee bars I made awhile ago that were terrible. Not only did I use too strong of coffee but I added way too many grounds. The bars felt like you were rubbing gravel on your skin and the burnt coffee smell was awful.
Now I have light brown goo with just a few grounds in it. It lathers good and I'm happy I will be able to actually make this batch usable. The goo almost reminds me of cheese curds, I bet a cheese press would work good to get the excess water out. Once mine has drained and started to stick together, I'll probably plop it in some cavity molds.
 
I salted out a couple coffee bars I made awhile ago that were terrible. Not only did I use too strong of coffee but I added way too many grounds. The bars felt like you were rubbing gravel on your skin and the burnt coffee smell was awful.
Now I have light brown goo with just a few grounds in it. It lathers good and I'm happy I will be able to actually make this batch usable. The goo almost reminds me of cheese curds, I bet a cheese press would work good to get the excess water out. Once mine has drained and started to stick together, I'll probably plop it in some cavity molds.
What salt percentage did you use and what oils did you use?
 
This recipe was olive oil and beef tallow. I started with 32 liquid oz of water and added 1/8 cup salt, this didn't seem to be enough salt so I started adding small amounts until I seen the soap curdle. When I boil down the rest of this batch, I will weigh everything out and have more precise answers.

My goo started to dry and separate so I stuffed it into molds. I was able to unmold a bit ago, the bars are very fragile at this point and still leaking water but should be fine once they have dried out.
 
So, after this little experiment I will never, ever salt out soap again. The resulting soap is waxy, crumbly and near impossible to get it to hold any kind of shape. I tried stuffing it into cavity molds, into a log mold, in pantyhose (just squeezes through the material). Finally I had to settle on making soap balls, my least favorite soap shape.
It so crumbly and delicate, I can't image it will ever hold together enough to actually use. It also felt really nasty on my skin, I had to add glycerin back to help it feel like soap and not wax.
I suppose if someone had a press machine, you could squeeze it into hard bars but its a pain to do by hand.
 

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