Superfat/Discount %

[selah925]

How do I determine what percent to set this at? Or do I just leave it at 5%? Supposing I typically add 1 oz. per pound of base oils as a superfat.

By the way, are there any great books with recipes, setting the superfat discount, lye concentration, base oil percentages, etc.?

Thanks!

 

[carebear]

1. I usually SF at 5-6%.
2. If you usually add an ounce per pound of soap that is 1/(1+16) = 5.88%
3. Tons of recipes on millersoap.com. Never trust a recipe for the lye amount. Start with the oils amounts and run them through a soap calculator (soapcalc.com is a good one) yourself to get the lye amount. Books and recipes are FULL of errors in lye.

 

[selah925]

So ... what if I decide not to add any oils to superfat with? Using only the base oils and the essential oils? Do I need to adjust the % to 0 on the soapcalc?

Would using 2 or more superfatting oils at the 1 oz per pound of base oils, be too much then?

I haven't come to a particular pattern yet and sometimes use no superfatting oils, to using only 1, to using a couple.

 

[carebear]

it is not advisable to have a 0% superfat. see natural oils are inherently variable and the SAP values in the charts are just averages (that's why different calculators sometimes recommend slightly different lye amounts). in reality the SAP for your particular batch of a particular oil could be different. having at least a 2-3% SF helps ensure that you don't accidentally end up with a lye heavy soap. am I making sense?