Vinegar and Citric Acid

[cmzaha]

I will again mention I do not use CA but use SG and Tetrasodium EDTA and use Vinegar in all soaps around 50%. I usually pour at emulsion and use no OO. My soaps are either a high tallow/lard, Palm/shea, Palm/lard dual lye, with either HO Sunflower, HO Canola, or Avocado.

Maybe Vinegar and CA simply do not work. If I ever get to playing around again I just might try it out and see if the two together work with my recipes.

 

[Megan]

So the coconut oil and shea batch I did that was crumbly was around 100 degrees after combining the lye and the oils. The oils were at 90 and slightly cloudy but in my head I thought awww that's not that low...and the lye water was around 110 so I just thought I'd split the difference. I wonder if the oils at 90 might have been too low.

I shoved it in the oven immediately. I was hesitant to do this, but I babysat like usual and it only got up to 160 at the highest. I could not see the gel phase, but I usually heat my soaps to around 150/160 normally when I CPOP, so I just took them out when they got there. I'm not sure if it did gel or not because when I poked it at 150, I just got some weird chalky soap on my finger, it didn't have any "give" like gel usually has.

For my normal recipe, I always get mottling if I soap under 90 degrees. Sometimes I will use room temp lye water, but my oils have to be clear. Which is usually around 95 at the lowest. Luckily, I'm a pretty impatient person, so I will often wait until just under 120 so that when I combine it's around 100 more or less. I have tried the "room temperature"(more like 80 degrees because I get impatient and start to worry about my clouding oils) method 10 or more times and it has never worked for me. Even when CPOPing afterwards...go figure.

The thing is, is that I only use around 20% coconut oil and 15% solid butters...so it's not like a huge amount in my opinion...it just baffles me that people using high palm oil can do the RTM.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

This is really interesting.
I’m wondering if my last crumbly soap cooled too much. I think I took a phone all in the middle of making it.

What temp do you start out at? what temp do you think is too low and the mix starts to get grainy?

The temperature I aim for depends on the recipe, and keeping in mind that my molds are in the 500 to 1000 g of oils size range. I’ve learned that mold size is a key factor. Holding recipe constant, a batch in my 1000g loaf mold will retain the heat produced by saponification better than the same recipe in my 550g loaf mold, which holds more heat than the 750 g slab mold. For soaps mixed to emulsion: I can make a lard-rich recipe (50-80% lard) at room temperature (75-80 F) and have more than 30 minutes to swirl, but I absolutely have to CPOP (oven prewarmed to 140F) or put it on a heating pad if I want soap with a nice texture and little to no ash (and I’m using 33-37% lye concentration). For my recipe with tallow and lard, I aim for a batter temp of 115-120F on initial mixing (before it starts to heat up due to saponification and start even higher (125 - 130F) for my recipes based on soy wax. If the batter for t/l and soy wax recipes (with no accelerating fragrances or additives that cause heating) is warm when it goes into the mold, the soap will be fine. All I do is cover it and put it on a heating pad set on medium for 30 minutes or so, shut the heating pad off and leave it until the next day (okay, yes, I peek). If the batter is below 100F going into the mold, my chances of graininess, ash and stearic spots go up. In those situations I’ve tried putting the soap in a warmer oven (preheated to 170F, shut off as soap goes in) or setting the heating pad on high, but haven’t quite worked it out for perfect soap. Sometimes it’s perfect and sometimes I overcompensate and get heat rash or bubbles in the finished soap. I just recently started adding sugar to my recipes to see if that will help. I’ve also thought about using a water bath to keep the portioned batter from cooling off. Or, I just need to work faster!

 

[penelopejane]

So the coconut oil and shea batch I did that was crumbly was around 100 degrees after combining the lye and the oils. The oils were at 90 and slightly cloudy but in my head I thought awww that's not that low...and the lye water was around 110 so I just thought I'd split the difference. I wonder if the oils at 90 might have been too low.

I shoved it in the oven immediately. I was hesitant to do this, but I babysat like usual and it only got up to 160 at the highest. I could not see the gel phase, but I usually heat my soaps to around 150/160 normally when I CPOP, so I just took them out when they got there. I'm not sure if it did gel or not because when I poked it at 150, I just got some weird chalky soap on my finger, it didn't have any "give" like gel usually has.

For my normal recipe, I always get mottling if I soap under 90 degrees. Sometimes I will use room temp lye water, but my oils have to be clear. Which is usually around 95 at the lowest. Luckily, I'm a pretty impatient person, so I will often wait until just under 120 so that when I combine it's around 100 more or less. I have tried the "room temperature"(more like 80 degrees because I get impatient and start to worry about my clouding oils) method 10 or more times and it has never worked for me. Even when CPOPing afterwards...go figure.

The thing is, is that I only use around 20% coconut oil and 15% solid butters...so it's not like a huge amount in my opinion...it just baffles me that people using high palm oil can do the RTM.

Try CPOPing by turning the oven on and preheating to 110*F then turning it off when you put the wrapped soap in and leaving it without opening the oven for 12-18 hours.
Or wrap it and put it in a polystyrene box with lid and cover that with blankets and leave for 12-18 hours untouched.
Your white swirls and dots sound like stearic spots which soaping at 110* F will get rid of. Some people don’t seem to mind stearic spots.

mob jack bay
I couldn’t get a heat pad to work either - too hot and it caused hard edges. I dropped my lye concentration to 31 for soaps that take ages. I also take certain sections only to emulsion until I’m just about to use them. Try a lower heat for your oven and more blankets for your cover.

I soap at the same temp and have the same method for every recipe - GM, honey etc.

 

[Megan]

Try CPOPing by turning the oven on and preheating to 110*F then turning it off when you put the wrapped soap in and leaving it without opening the oven for 12-18 hours.
Or wrap it and put it in a polystyrene box with lid and cover that with blankets and leave for 12-18 hours untouched.
Your white swirls and dots sound like stearic spots which soaping at 110* F will get rid of. Some people don’t seem to mind stearic spots.

mob jack bay
I couldn’t get a heat pad to work either - too hot and it caused hard edges. I dropped my lye concentration to 31 for soaps that take ages. I also take certain sections only to emulsion until I’m just about to use them. Try a lower heat for your oven and more blankets for your cover.

I soap at the same temp and have the same method for every recipe - GM, honey etc.

I CPOP pretty much all of my soaps at 170F and I let the coconut soap reach around 150/160 F before I took it out. This soap was just crumbly...probably because of the high superfat and high salt content combined.

 

[penelopejane]

I CPOP pretty much all of my soaps at 170F and I let the coconut soap reach around 150/160 F before I took it out. This soap was just crumbly...probably because of the high superfat and high salt content combined.

I think 170* is way too high. Try the above method and don’t open the oven - you’ll be amazed. I don’t think it has anything to do with SF or salt. What have you got to lose?

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@penelopejane I still haven’t found a completely satisfactory way to hold and mix small portions (1-2oz) of batter once I’ve split them from the batch. My stick blender is too big and I end up adding air bubbles. My mini blender works, but it takes longer. That’s why I’m trying to find ways to keep my splits of batter a little warmer for a little longer. Maybe I should try setting them in a little insulated box. It doesn’t help that I keep my house cool in the winter.

 

[penelopejane]

I sometimes put a mix in a cup that is only big enough for the blender to just fit into and this doesn't seem to add too many bubbles. At times I've put aside part of a batch for a few minutes rolleyes: ) and it just doesn't need to be mixed at all. It moves along enough by itself so I just stir it with my spatula and that is enough.