Tried some oat water...not so good

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sudsy_kiwi

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Had my first real problem batch tonight, and not too sure where the problem was. Up til now, I've kept things pretty simple, trying to get the basics right...about the flashest I'd done was a simple 2-layer soap. So tonight I wanted to try my first swirl.

I decided I wanted to do a coffee oatmeal soap... half the batter made with black coffee, the other half with oat-infused water. The coffee half was fine, I'd done it before. For the oat water, I left oats soaking for the day then strained the water through cloth before wringing it out to get every last drop. Towards the end it was coming out almost like milk. When I started stirring in the lye I noticed there was an almost gummy consistency in places. I kept stirring and eventually it all seemed to dissolve but the lye mix appeared kinda "textured".

After making up the coffee half of the batter, I came back to mix up the oat half, and that's where I really started getting tripped up. It took ages to come to trace. By the time it got close to looking kinda like thin trace, the coffee half had started to set. My original plan was to pour both into a slab mold and swirl together, but at this point I changed my mind and went for and in-the-pot type swirl, as I figured by the time I'd got a thicker trace, the coffee half would have set too far to pour properly. So I half-a$$ed an ITP swirl and poured the whole sloppy mess into the mold, and bunged it into the fridge. I didn't take the time to get a pic as I wanted to refrigerate it as fast as possible, but I'll get a pic tomorrow.

So what I'm wanting to find out is where I went wrong with the oat water. Should I have not gone for the almost milky water? Or is this normal for oat-infused water? Any other thoughts from the gurus?
 
Oat water is very gooey, the proteins make it gel. It tripped me up a bit the first time I saw it too. It sounds like you did everything right, I am sure your soap will be fine. I love oat water in soap.
 
That sounds about right. Every time I've used oat water (which I don't strain), I've ended up with a gooy lye mix and double the time to trace. Unfortunately, last time I used it, I had lye pockets...bummer.
 
Wondering if using the oat water separate from the lye solution might help with it?

this is what i have in mind too. last time i tried to mix lye with oat milk ended up with a mess. the mixture got doughy and weird, i doubt the lye can properly dissolved. doing a partial liquid swap solved the problem.
 
Thanks for all your tips and advice. It was good to learn that I hadn't messed up completely lol, although I think next time, I'll do a partial liquid swap.

Anyway, I left it in the fridge overnight, then left it at room temp til I cut it at 24hrs. It's still a bit moist on the insides, but overall hasn't turned out too bad. I messed up a bit, by putting the wrong amount of oils into Soapcalc, and made a bigger batch than intended, so the slab was a bit thicker than I'd planned.

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