Temperature for soaping too hot?

[Dharlee]

I have about 10 batches under my belt and am wondering if I am soaping too hot after reading many of your posts. Generally I wait (and wait and wait lol) for the lye water to reach about 130 and make sure the oils are close to soap. So far it's been fine but is this too hot and a wreck just wsitinh to happen?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

If you are getting to trace and beyond too quickly, or often fighting with separation and overheating, then you need to soap cooler. If you soaps are turning out fab-u-lous, then carry on as you are! Most people soap cooler because they want to swirl and so on, which is better with a colder batter.

 

[shunt2011]

110-120 is usually what folks shoot for temp wise for those who watch the temp. 130 seems too high to me but if it's working for you no worries. I personally room temp soap. I master batch my oils in a 5 gallon bucket and just give it a good stir and measure out what I need (sometimes I warm them up if it's too cold). As for lye it's room temp as well.

 

[seven]

I'm with shunt2011.. I soap room temp because for me it gives more time and control. I also live in the tropics, so i prefer to wait for my lye to cool down, since i don't have to melt my oils (well, except butters)

 

[dixiedragon]

I try to soap at around 100 - there are some FOs that start to misbehave at higher temps and I've found 100 to be a good compromise between too hot and too cool for my purposes. But there is nothing inherently wrong with soaping at 130. You probably will one day have an overheating mishap, but you are going to have occasional mishaps at ANY temp.

 

[Dharlee]

Thank you guys so much. It's so nice that you all are so kind to take the time to help folks out here. This is quit frankly the nicest forum I have ever seen on ANY subject.

 

[IrishLass]

I myself like to soap around 110F, but I've soaped much higher than that at times without a problem (130F- 140F). Once, I even soaped a lard soap at 160F (accidentally) and it still came out fine, and with no piggy smell either (yay!). Thankfully, my FOs were the type that were able to handle the higher temps.


IrishLass

 

[Susie]

I soap hot because I don't swirl and such, so the faster trace, the better for me.

 

[ngian]

Well I also don't do swirls much, and I'm using FOs that doesn't accelerate, and so lately I tested something for the first time with a recipe that is described here with Sat : Unsat Ratio | 41 : 59.

As lately I'm very bored to wait for the lye to cool down, I mixed it with the melted oils at a temperature of ~70°C (158°F) and the melted oils at ~40°C (104°F). I let the soap to cool to a medium temperature of both liquids and oils by spatula steering a little and then I started SB occasionally and reached trace slowly and under control,

Then the next week I didn't want to wait at all neither for the lye to cool down, nor for melting the oils. So I mixed them while the lye was just fully dissolved at 85°C (185°F) and the oils where at room temperature (~25°C / 77°F) and Lard just came out of the refrigerator as a hard solid bar. I did spoon steered a few minutes until almost all the lard was melted with the help of the temperature that the lye had, and by that time that the liquid soap paste was at ~43°C (109°F) so I SB it till it naturally reached trace.

I think I'm going to try this again with a similar recipe, not waiting for the lye to cool down, as long as the SB is resting aside and I'm using a safe FO...

You see, DeeAnna has made me thinking hard about soda ash in every stage that the NaOH is (from solid, to water mixed and then inside the soap), that I try to eliminate the time that NaOH is waiting alone from the time it gets out of its vessel till the time it saponifies the fatty acids

edit:
Here is a video that demonstrates that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=149&v=rY-NaENb8YQ

(Well the percentage of water is way too hi, but I just share this video for the method only)

 

[Dharlee]

I have actually heard of this and it intrigues me quite a bit. I have heard it called the "heat transfer method" but I don't know if that's the correct term or not.

Thank you! Also love that experiment!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

It is indeed the same method. I also used it before and it is very handy - some of the harder butters might need a hand to get them soft so it can actually work, but you really don't have to melt down all of the hard oils and wait around, which is a great time saver.