Sigh. Just how badly did I screw up?

[Ephemerella]

So my trusty lil' hamilton beach SB died right in the middle of blending a batch. I was soaping at the coldest temperature I've ever done knowing that my FO was going to cause massive acceleration. Lil' Hammy went "chug chug dead" just as I was barely on the edge of emulsion but not totally there. I stirred stirred stirred, waited a while, stirred stirred stirred, even put on reading glasses to check, but I wasn't totally sure I was emulsified. So I decided to sacrifice the house SB to the soap gods.

When I was cleaning up, I noticed the metal bell and shaft didn't have the same smooth texture as stainless. So I looked it up online, and yeppers... the blade is identified as stainless, the bell and shaft are not.

Am I doomed to rancidity?

Is there anything I can do with this batch?

Sigh.

I had two more batches to kick out tonight. I guess I'll be using my fully stainless mini mixer to get started and a whole lotta hand mixing

 

[Catscankim]

I have honestly never checked if my stick blender was stainless and I have two sb. I don't know why I never checked lol.

Anyway, I do have a testimonial of what it looks like when the lye interacts with non-stainless metal. It looks bad! This used to have a copper looking bottom, which now I guess was not really copper lol. It was sitting in the soapy dishes water. It was a long time ago, I don't know how I ended up putting it in there or what I was thinking.

The picture doesn't even look as bad as it does in real life. So my NON-SCIENTIFIC opinion, is that if your stick blender isn't discolored like this, then I think your soap is fine...

 

[Ephemerella]

Just came up for a quick check on my wine break, PHEW! YOU MADE MY DAY! Or night...

Nope, didn't have anything like that at all, everything went swimmingly other than the fact that I hate the design of the SB I used (Oh Hammy! I miss you already!).

This batch is officially flagged as suspicious, though. I was reading this post doing my research before posting: Can you use both ROE and Sodium citrate when making soaps?

So, I'll wait till the 6 week mark to see if anything notorious surfaces.

A thousand thank yous!