Why is it brittle?

[ozziesgirl]

I made a batch of soap with the following recipe because I wanted to use up some different oils I had on hand.

12.3 oz. coconut oil
10 oz, lard
10 oz. olive oil
3.7 oz. grapeseed oil
3.2 oz. cocoa butter
.8 oz. swt. almond oil
16 oz. water
6.68 oz. lye
1 oz. lemongrass EO

It was a CP soap. Half of the soap went into a silicone loaf mold, and the rest in silicone bar molds. It set in my pretty chilly basement for 48 hours.
The bars from the individual molds are great, and the loaf looked beautiful when I dropped it out, but it ended up being pretty brittle when I cut it. What went wrong?
I mostly make soap for my family, and sell a little to friends because I make more than we can use. When I used to just make soap and not give any thought to the temps and conditions, it never seemed like I had problems. Now that I have started trying take it up a notch and be more deliberate with my methods, things go funky on me all the time.

 

[lenarenee]

I haven't run this through the soap calculator, but could the problem be that you simply cut the loaf a little late?

What do you mean by brittle?

 

[dixiedragon]

I'm too lazy to run the recipe, but I'd blame the coconut and the cocoa butter. What percentages are they?

Can you post pictures?

The loaf probably gelled, so it was harder than individual bars. When your soap is firm with some give, like a block of cheddar, it's ready to cut. Cream cheese or brie - too soft to cut. Parmesan - waited to long, it will be brittle.

 

[cmzaha]

Did you list all your oils above for proper weights? SAO looks like it is listed at 0.8 oz, if that is correct your soap is quite lye heavy, so I am thinking you did not mean to add the decimal.

 

[ozziesgirl]

Oils above are correct.

I'm too lazy to run the recipe, but I'd blame the coconut and the cocoa butter. What percentages are they?

Can you post pictures?

The loaf probably gelled, so it was harder than individual bars. When your soap is firm with some give, like a block of cheddar, it's ready to cut. Cream cheese or brie - too soft to cut. Parmesan - waited to long, it will be brittle.

It was definitely closest to Parm. I typically make soap with a larger quantity of olive oil and soft oils, so I am used to being able to wait 4 or 5+ days to cut bars. Maybe it was just too hard.

 

[dixiedragon]

Looks good though! If you JUST CAN'T STAND IT, you could put it back in the mold, put the old in the oven and put it through a second gel. It should come back together. But it might also cook off and weaken your scent.

 

[Amaress]

Did you list all your oils above for proper weights? SAO looks like it is listed at 0.8 oz, if that is correct your soap is quite lye heavy, so I am thinking you did not mean to add the decimal.

cmzaha is right on the money here, you have over an extra ounce of lye in that soap. Lye heavy soap, besides dangerous, is very hard and brittle. You should rebatch this with extra oils. How did you come by your recipe?

 

[ozziesgirl]

cmzaha is right on the money here, you have over an extra ounce of lye in that soap. Lye heavy soap, besides dangerous, is very hard and brittle. You should rebatch this with extra oils. How did you come by your recipe?

Well that is an excellent question, because I have the soapcalc numbers printed out, and somehow I transferred them to paper incorrectly. So, mystery solved about the brittleness, but now my question is, where do you learn about rebatching with extra oils?

 

[Dawni]

There's different ways to rebatch.. Slow cooker, microwave, mixing grated soap in with new soap batter... and there's a ton of info on the forum if you do a search. Then you can see which way you'd rather be doing.

"Rebatch site:soapmakingforum.com" is what I'd enter in my browser search