Tallow and Designs

[gildedgoose]

Hello fellow soapers!

So I am brand new to the tallow soap making world. I have loved the bars I’ve bought and used from others and would love to incorporate tallow in my recipes.
I jumped right in feet first and all was going well, however, my concern is the trace. My soap came to a nice slow trace enough to pour and do some intricate designs at this trace…. However, some of the designs I’ve made in the past I am concerned about not being able to create with how slow the trace is. What I mean by this is that it seemed no matter how long I would stick blend, it stayed very thin.
A couple of the designs I’ve made I needed to get the soap to a fairly thick trace (i.e. piping, layering) I had a difficult time just texturing the top, even after waiting several minutes.
I’ll share the recipe I used.

Is this what’s to be expected with using tallow or could things be tweaked to achieve this?

Recipe:
Tallow 50%
CO 30%
Olive oil 10%
Castor Oil 5%
Canola Oil 5%
Superfat 6%
Lye/water 38%

Thanks y’all!
~Alyssa

 

[AliOop]

Hallo! I can suggest a couple of things to speed up trace:

1. Increase the heat of your batch. Soaping even 10 degrees warmer can make a big difference.

2. Increase your lye concentration. When you say “38%” I am guessing that you mean “water as percent of oils.” That setting was originally developed for hot process soap making, and often results in a very low lye concentration, aka high water. That definitely slows down trace in many cases. It also means that your percentage of water will not be consistent as you scale the recipe up or down. I strongly recommend switching to the “lye concentration” setting in the calculator that you use. But first, look at the actual lye concentration created by your recipe as listed above. It’s probably 30% or below. Bumping it up to 33% should help you trace faster. If it’s not fast enough, try 35% lye concentration.

Another advantage of using lye concentration instead of water-as-%-of-oils is that you don’t have to mess around with “water discounts.” Just change the lye concentration up or down for less or more water, as you may desire.

There are other ways to speed up trace, such as adding a few shreds of finished soap, or using 1-2 drops of an EO that contains eugenol (cinnamon, thyme, etc.). However, the two main methods listed above (heat and lye concentration) are basic soapmaking skills that are important to master. So I’d recommend starting with lye concentration first, and if that’s not enough, then try increasing your soaping temps a bit.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

 

[gildedgoose]

Hallo! I can suggest a couple of things to speed up trace:

1. Increase the heat of your batch. Soaping even 10 degrees warmer can make a big difference.

2. Increase your lye concentration. When you say “38%” I am guessing that you mean “water as percent of oils.” That setting was originally developed for hot process soap making, and often results in a very low lye concentration, aka high water. That definitely slows down trace in many cases. It also means that your percentage of water will not be consistent as you scale the recipe up or down. I strongly recommend switching to the “lye concentration” setting in the calculator that you use. But first, look at the actual lye concentration created by your recipe as listed above. It’s probably 30% or below. Bumping it up to 33% should help you trace faster. If it’s not fast enough, try 35% lye concentration.

Another advantage of using lye concentration instead of water-as-%-of-oils is that you don’t have to mess around with “water discounts.” Just change the lye concentration up or down for less or more water, as you may desire.

There are other ways to speed up trace, such as adding a few shreds of finished soap, or using 1-2 drops of an EO that contains eugenol (cinnamon, thyme, etc.). However, the two main methods listed above (heat and lye concentration) are basic soapmaking skills that are important to master. So I’d recommend starting with lye concentration first, and if that’s not enough, then try increasing your soaping temps a bit.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

This information is super helpful, I will do this in the next batch I make tonight! I went and looked at the soapcalc and you’re completely right in that entire paragraph as I was using the standard water-as-%-of-oils… I’m still a newbie to even punching in my own ingredients to a soapcalc so rookie move on my part.

I’ll report back on how this goes. I’m just very happy to hear this isn’t a tallow issue and just an operator error