Same problem with every batch, would appreciate help

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

What temperature should I combine oils and lye and what should temp should I try to maintain until trace occurs?

Are you changing to the blender?

If you are not looking to swirl or anything, one option is the heat transfer method. You make your lye water using just room temp water and as soon as the lye is dissolved you pour it on to your solid oils and use the heat from the lye water to melt them down. Then add in your room temp liquid oils.

If you're hand stirring, I don't know if that would work though

 

[Oldsoaper]

IrishLass, she has complained lately that it is drying her skin too much and is causing her eczema to come back.
The Efficacious Gentleman, I am planning on trying the stick blender.

 

[DeeAnna]

"... What temperature should I combine oils and lye and what should temp should I try to maintain until trace occurs? ..."

Basically you need to keep the temp of your soap batter right at or a bit above the melting point of your blended fats. And you need to maintain this temperature during the time it takes to get the soap to trace. If that is the 115 to 120 degrees F that you mentioned earlier -- and that seems quite reasonable -- then that is your goal.

When you use a stick blender, you can warm the fats until they are just melted, add lye that is pleasantly warm to the touch, and stick blend and hand stir to trace in a short time. Because it generally doesn't take a long time to get to trace with a stick blender, the soap batter is not going to cool a great deal, and you almost never have to add extra heat.

If you take the stick blender away and go to all hand stirring, the time to trace is often much longer. During that time, little or no heat is being created by saponification, so your batter is going to cool from the stirring and from being in room temperature air. This temperature drop can be large enough to slow down saponification enough so if you stop stirring, the mixture will never come to trace or it will only partially saponify. So extra heat may be needed to force the saponification reaction to go faster so you don't have to spend hours upon hours of stirring.

Just a comment -- It is not that important to have the fats and lye near each other in temperature when you first put them together. I know many soap making tutorials and books call for this, but I think this rule-of-thumb may have evolved to new soapers out of trouble (false trace, too-fast saponification, etc.). But once a person has made soap for awhile and has a clue about making soap, this rule-of-thumb is not particularly useful. Kind of like the rule of thumb to only use a sassafras stick to stir soap, or to only stir clockwise, or only make soap in a certain phase of the moon, etc.

 

[ngian]

If you use the heat transfer method that Craig mentioned, use only the spatula until all the hard oils are fully melted by the hot lye solution and then start using the stick blender to reach trace.

 

[DeeAnna]

Just a caution -- The heat transfer method might work for this person's recipe or it might not. That's a lot of solid fat (65%) to melt with just the hot lye.

I often can't use the heat transfer method with my high-lard recipes, especially when my house is cool. To get my fats entirely melted, I have to add some extra heat. I don't want to be warming my liquid oils enough to get the lard melted while my lye is already communing with fats in my soap pot. Not a good place to be!

I've learned to warm the solid fats until they're pretty soft if not fully melted, stick blend my liquid oils into the solid fats until the mixture has no lumps, and then I use the hot lye to melt them the rest of the way.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

^^^ this is a great cautionary point that I missed out - not all recipes work well with it. Anything with a lot of something with a high melting point can cause issues

 

[DeeAnna]

You're right on target, Craig. It seems like the heat-transfer method is a no-brainer idea. Problem is the hot lye has to do two things -- warm the solid fat to its melting temperature AND cause the solid fat to change from a solid to a liquid. The phase change (solid -> liquid) uses up a lot more energy than you might expect. The hot lye has to supply enough energy to do both tasks, and that doesn't always happen even if the lye is smokin' hot.

 

[lenarenee]

In regards to your wife experiencing dryness: when the amounts of coconut oil and palm kernel oil are reduced that should help a lot.

Do you have a thermometer for the oils? If not, then my personal rule of thumb is to soap while the oils are still clear instead of foggy (as in starting to solidify again). I can comfortably hold my bare hand on the lye container and the pot of melted oils without needing to remove it. My recipes are usually also very high in hard oils and in 2 years have never had false trace, and never use a thermometer.

 

[cmzaha]

I also do not find that heat transfer works to melt high amount of solid oils.

 

[IrishLass]

IrishLass, she has complained lately that it is drying her skin too much and is causing her eczema to come back.

In that case, I think I would go with Susie's recipe that she posted on page 2 of this thread:

Coconut Oil 10%
Palm Kernel Oil 5%
Mango Butter 10%
Olive Oil 25%
Lard 50%


IrishLass

 

[Susie]

Also, use at least 5% superfat. 8% would probably be better.

I use the heat transfer method only in the summer when the house is right at or above 76 degrees, otherwise, I melt my solid oils completely, add the liquid oils (and EOs) and then add my hot lye water to that. I don't mind fast trace, as I don't do any fancy swirls, or use any accelerating scents. So it actually helps me if trace is faster.

However, a couple of words of caution when learning to use a stick blender-don't continuously stick blend. Use 15-20 second bursts and alternate with hand stirring an equal amount of time. This will save the motor of your stick blender from burning out. Also be sure you keep the entire head of the stick blender submerged. This will save you not only from splattering raw soap all over you and everything else in the room, it will keep you from having lots of air bubbles in your soap. Goggles, gloves, and long sleeves are mandatory if you aren't already using them.

 

[Oldsoaper]

I made a new batch today using a stick blender. It worked great. The recipe I used was:

Coconut 10%
Lard 50%
Mango Butter 10%
Olive 25%
Palm Kernal 5%

I used the blender for twenty seconds and then stirred for twenty. I repeated this and within a few minutes I had a trace unlike any I had seen before. I think you were all correct in that I was seeing a false trace but did not know any better. I also made sure I kept the temp up on the batter which I have not done in the past.

The batter looked like pudding and I was thrilled. I think this will be the first real batch of soap I have made.

Thanks to everyone, your posts really helped.

 

[traderbren]

I'm excited to hear how it turns out. Please be sure to let us know when you cut and share pics!

 

[Serene]

Congratulations, Oldsoaper! That is fantastic news. Please keep us posted.

 

[Seawolfe]

Yay!! Post pics of the soap!

 

[Steve85569]

I made a new batch today using a stick blender. It worked great. The recipe I used was:

Coconut 10%
Lard 50%
Mango Butter 10%
Olive 25%
Palm Kernal 5%

I used the blender for twenty seconds and then stirred for twenty. I repeated this and within a few minutes I had a trace unlike any I had seen before. I think you were all correct in that I was seeing a false trace but did not know any better. I also made sure I kept the temp up on the batter which I have not done in the past.

The batter looked like pudding and I was thrilled. I think this will be the first real batch of soap I have made.

Thanks to everyone, your posts really helped.

And another one has the addiction!
Welcome to the forum and remember. Without pictures it never happened.:mrgreen:

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

^^^ this. Especially pictures of your soap nicely cut in to bars. That is like catnip for soapers

 

[penelopejane]

I am so pleased you discovered the solution to your problem. Making soap is wonderful when it turns out well.

 

[shunt2011]

Congratulations, I'm glad it finally worked out for you.

 

[Oldsoaper]

I actually cut the soap at about 2:00pm EST. My wife had me seal it up in large tub because of the raw soap odors bothered her. I am going to make another small batch on Wednesday and cut on Thursday. I will take pictures of both then since I will be letting them age in the same tub. I think it looks great but you can decide for yourselves on Thursday.