Sodium Gluconate...can it be made ahead.

[Jersey Girl]

For those who use SG...can you make a 50% solution with distilled water like you can with EDTA and store it in a squeeze bottle? Will it keep for several weeks?
@cmzaha you said you use this in every batch along with EDTA. Do you “masterbatch” it? I think I’m going to try it at a 50% solution.

 

[AliOop]

I'd like to know the answer to this, as well, so hopefully someone with experience will chime in. I don't have a need for chelators for my personal soap, but a lot of people to whom I gift soap have really hard water, so I need to be more consistent about including a chelator. And SG sounds much simpler than CA.

 

[DeeAnna]

Disclaimer -- I am not a sodium gluconate (SG) whiz, so take this advice for what it's worth. I want to switch to using it, but I have a fair bit of EDTA to use up first, so I don't have personal experience with the stuff.

It appears that you can make up to a 60% solution of SG in water -- as in 60 g SG plus 40 g water. Given many of us are familiar with using 50% solutions of NaOH and EDTA and other things, I'd suggest making a 50% solution instead -- 50 g SG plus 50 g water.

Buuut there's a big problem with this plan --

SG is chemically stable in the absence of microorganisms, but it is highly biodegradable -- I'm reading numbers like over 90% degradation in just a couple of days.

Translation -- IF you can keep the solution sterile, it will stay good for a long time, but if this solution gets contaminated with bacteria and other microbes, it's going to go bad really fast.

So if you want to make a SG solution, I'd use boiled distilled water and I would also include a broad spectrum water-soluble preservative to protect the SG from being chomped up by microbes. Liquid Germall Plus would qualify, I'd think.

But that brings me to another big problem --

How can you tell if the SG has biodegraded? There may or may not be any visual clues -- you might see bacterial slime or fungal growth in the solution or you might not. The first clue you might get that the SG solution wasn't good could be a nice crop of DOS. (The main benefit of using a chelator in soap is controlling rancidity/DOS. Reducing soap scum is only a secondary, somewhat limited benefit. )

My take on this?

Use the powder directly as needed. Or make up an SG solution for the day's soap making, and discard any leftovers at the end of the day.

 

[cmzaha]

For those who use SG...can you make a 50% solution with distilled water like you can with EDTA and store it in a squeeze bottle? Will it keep for several weeks?
@cmzaha you said you use this in every batch along with EDTA. Do you “masterbatch” it? I think I’m going to try it at a 50% solution.

Sorry, I am so late in seeing this post. I make my solution fresh with each batch. I just dissolve my EDTA and SG in my extra liquid since I soap with 50/50 master batch. My extra liquid is vinegar so it is dissolved in my vinegar with my sorbitol.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Disclaimer -- I am not a sodium gluconate (SG) whiz, so take this advice for what it's worth. I want to switch to using it, but I have a fair bit of EDTA to use up first, so I don't have personal experience with the stuff.

It appears that you can make up to a 60% solution of SG in water -- as in 60 g SG plus 40 g water. Given many of us are familiar with using 50% solutions of NaOH and EDTA and other things, I'd suggest making a 50% solution instead -- 50 g SG plus 50 g water.

Buuut there's a big problem with this plan --

SG is chemically stable in the absence of microorganisms, but it is highly biodegradable -- I'm reading numbers like over 90% degradation in just a couple of days.

Translation -- IF you can keep the solution sterile, it will stay good for a long time, but if this solution gets contaminated with bacteria and other microbes, it's going to go bad really fast.

So if you want to make a SG solution, I'd use boiled distilled water and I would also include a broad spectrum water-soluble preservative to protect the SG from being chomped up by microbes. Liquid Germall Plus would qualify, I'd think.

But that brings me to another big problem --

How can you tell if the SG has biodegraded? There may or may not be any visual clues -- you might see bacterial slime or fungal growth in the solution or you might not. The first clue you might get that the SG solution wasn't good could be a nice crop of DOS. (The main benefit of using a chelator in soap is controlling rancidity/DOS. Reducing soap scum is only a secondary, somewhat limited benefit. )

My take on this?

Use the powder directly as needed. Or make up an SG solution for the day's soap making, and discard any leftovers at the end of the day.

Thank you for this information @DeeAnna Doesn’t seem it’s worth it to take the chance of possible contamination. Will use it as needed.

 

[DeeAnna]

Since I'm not at the point of using SG, I hadn't looked this info up yet, but it was well worth the time spent researching it. And I'm glad to know my thoughts agree with Carolyn's practice.