What else could go wrong with this batch?

[miggymoo]

Two nights ago I made a batch of soap. I used a recipe that I have in the past but scaled up and reran through the lye calculator again. First thing that probably worked against me is the fact that I had a long day at work and I'm pretty tired but I'm running out of time to make my wedding favors. I'm melting my oils in Pyrex on simmer on the stove which is something I normally do in the microwave and boom, the Pyrex explodes. I mean completely explodes :shock:.There's oil and glass all over except luckily not on me. I ended up with a couple minor scratches on the arm that was stirring. Luckily it wasn't the Pyrex that contained the lye water. I decide to clean up and then start over with the oils. The soap traces quickly like it's done in the past but now that I've scaled up it's taking me longer to get it into the PVC mold. Last night after about 20 hours in the mold, I put the PVC pipe in the oven for 10 minutes at 150 (like I always do to unmold PVC) the soap comes out a little too easily and is solid but all wet. I zap a couple dry spots, nothing. I zap the wet spots and it's clearly lye heavy. What is going on here? This morning most of it is dry but there's some spots that are clearly still wet with lye. This was probably about my 250th batch or so and I've used this recipe many times.

Recipe in oz
Co 76- 26.3
Palm- 21
Castor- 10.5
Shea- 21
OO- 26.3

Water- 39.9
Lye-15.2

Lavender eo- 1.6
Peppermint eo- 1.0

Super fat discount 1%

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Pyrex on the stove???? :shock::shock::shock:

I know that Pyrex is good, but I don't think I would ever do that. Double-boiler (put the jug in the pan), yes - but directly on the heating part? It is still glass, no matter how good it is.

There are a lot of threads on lye in glass not being a good idea (the lye dissolves the glass) and as you saw, glass is not as perfect as we like to think. I always mix my lye in good heavy duty plastic instead. Would glass break if I was mixing lye in there? Maybe not - but then I think you thought the same with the oils. Thank goodness you weren't hurt.

Did you insulate the mould? Chill it?

 

[miggymoo]

Yep I'm not sure what I was thinking with the Pyrex on the stove. I'm going to stay away from glass all together and use heavy duty plastic or stainless steel. The very first recipe I ever used instructed me to measure the water into a glass pitcher so I went out and bought Pyrex and have used that ever since. http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/soapmaking.htm
250 batches later I realize that I'm lucky the Pyrex hadn't exploded when I was mixing the lye.

I did not insulate or chill this batch. I let the PVC pipe sit in the bathroom at room temp. I don't always insulate. It seems like the soap is ok... But I don't think it is. I did the tongue test again today and it is seems ok but I'm really concerned about that wetness that was seemed to be lye. Maybe I unmolded too soon? I've never experienced this in all my batches.

 

[Meganmischke]

Personally just 1% lye discount is not enough cushion for me. I think it is possible that you may have measure just one thing inaccurately and ended up with lye pockets. Also being a fast tracing recipe due to large proportion of hard oils you may have had a false trace of sorts. It is hard to know really. But if it passes the zap test it will be fine with a proper cure.