Thickening large batch

[Jor224]

Hi,

I made liquid soap, cold process, 6:3:1 pomace: coconut: palm, thicken with salt at 3% of soap water weight. The salt itself was dilluted in water as 25% salt water. It only took 1-2 min of stirring before it went thicker. It ended up good, thick, rather cloudy, and lather well.

It was a small batch tho, I ended up with around 800ml soap.

Now I made large batch of 4 liters soap water, exactly the same soap. After I thicken it with 3% salt, it didn't thicken and ended up milky. What went wrong? I thought if I follow exactly 3%, it won't past the salt curve and I'll immediately ended up with thick soap. Does it take longer time to thicken large batch?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

It sounds to me like you did everything correctly, so double check all your measurements to make sure you didn't leave anything out. Once you've done that, I would take a small portion of the batch add salt water a bit at a time to see if it thickens.

 

[Jor224]

So I tried more 25% salt water solution, it didn't work. It's still watery, and after I poured them on clear container, it forms separation just like the attached picture. Curdled at top and clear at bottom.

I reviewed what I did differently, there were three things. Maybe you and others with more experience than me can tell.
1. When I dissolved the KOH and poured it to the oil, turn out that my container does not have a flat bottom, some flakes remained unstirred. So I add them immediately to the oil while it was still flakes and mix them with oil and lye water. The solution looked darker than usual, like burned coffee bean, but ended up normal as time goes by.
2. I usually let my soap paste sit for 1-2 day after it formed soft mashed potato state. This time I diluted them after 8-9 hours. I performed zap test first and no tingling sensation on me, so I decided it's a pass.
3. In the previous batch, I calculated the needed salt 1% from total soap liquid and add the salt little by little, stirring and waiting in between. When it reached desired consistency, it was 3% of liquid weight. So in this batch, I decided to immediately calculate 3% and pour it at once.

It sounds to me like you did everything correctly, so double check all your measurements to make sure you didn't leave anything out. Once you've done that, I would take a small portion of the batch add salt water a bit at a time to see if it thickens.