URGENT - please help! Bad lye???

[Bukawww]

I haven't posted in a while but I never stop lurking!!!

I buy my lye from The Lye Guy. I've never had any issues before now (been buying from him for years now). I just made a 2ND master batch of 50/50 that is ruined (I think anyway). I made a batch a few days ago, everything seemed fine with it until I soaped with it and then subsequently confirmed my suspicions when I cut the loaves only to find the bars FILLED with lye pockets (zap tested).

I washed everything completely, made a 2nd master batch this morning. All solids were dissolved. I left it to cool while we were out of the house only to come home to find a thick layer of clear, hard jellied crap on the bottom of my container. I tried to stir it and I can't. Its like hard rubber. But its clear. I wasted 4 LBS of lye on this master batch and I'm mad. What could it be? Could it be the quality of the lye or have a done something wrong and overlooked it?

Also, there are TONS of floaties in there. I used distilled water.

 

[Fragola]

For your first zappy soap, if you say the solution looked clear, means the soap was damaged by some other mistake, it's not the lye's fault.

Second (actually, third, if I'm reading your correctly) is a bit more tricky. Probably the stuff dissolved while it was hot, but as it cooled down, part of the solute has recrystalized.

What I would try is adding a bit more water, for example up to 40 / 60.

Thing is that you need a pretty high purity lye for a 50 / 50 batch. Which doesn't mean that a lower purity lye (or older batch) can't be used and still make fine soap.

In conclusion, I see no reason to throw it away, since it still can make good soap.

Also, I cannot help but notice a coincidence between your zappy soap and your undissolved third batch - I believe both can be explained by a weighting error - maybe the problem is with your scale, after all.

 

[sudbubblez]

How was your lye stored? Moisture not only dillutes sodium hydroxide by displacing weight, it also reacts with it and further weakens the solution... but I would not attribute this to lye pockets. When solids precipitate out of the lye solution, they can be redisolved by warming the solution and vigorously shaking it. You will be shaking it for a long time but it can be saved if it only was the NaOH precipitating because it wasn't fully dissolved. I find that my 50/50 lye will precipitate if I leave it alone BEFORE the solution turns clear. While its foggy initially its difficult to see if its truly dissolved or not and it does take more time to dissolve 50/50 than it does high water. The clumps or layer doesn't mean your lye solution is bad, but once they form they are a lot of work to dissolve again, especially in 50/50.

Are you using food grade or techincal grade? Impurities in tech grade vary but what I read about mostly with the tech grade is the impurities being metals.

I belive this hard clear layer is the NaOH that precipitated out of the solution slowly and evenly enough that it made that even layer and not a clump b/c it wasn't fully dissolved at the time it was left to cool.