Why some oils make many pcs of soap compared to others ?

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saqqa

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Hey guys,
I just noticed this.
I made PALM OIL soap of 150grms- it gave me 8pcs of soaps (big size)
Second batch i tried-
Olive oil 60%, and Palm Kernal oil 40%- Total 300grams and it only gave me 4pcs of soap !!

Can you imagine ?
Palm oil was half oil quantity and it gave me 8pcs compared to other 2 oils it!!

:)
 
what were your exact recipe for each?
Sounds like you used a liquid discount in the 2nd vs the 1st recipe.
1st Recipe-
150grms Palm Oil
20grms Lye
57grms Water.

2nd Recipe-
120grms Palm Kernal Oil
180grms Olive Oil Pomace
43grms Lye
87 Water.
(Had done 33% Lye Concentration for this receipe, can that be the cause ?)

Something has to be off. Different oils won't change the amount of bars like that.

Did you use the same mold and cut the same size? Weighing oils or measuring by volume?
Yes I use same mold for each recipe.
I use kitchen scale (although I used different kitchen scale on the 2nd recipe)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
(Had done 33% Lye Concentration for this receipe, can that be the cause ?)
Yes it can.
Yes I use same mold for each recipe.
I use kitchen scale (although I used different kitchen scale on the 2nd recipe)
As long as your scales are calibrated, weight is weight and will always be the same regardless of scale.
 
1st Recipe-
150grms Palm Oil
20grms Lye
57grms Water.

2nd Recipe-
120grms Palm Kernal Oil
180grms Olive Oil Pomace
43grms Lye
87 Water.
(Had done 33% Lye Concentration for this receipe, can that be the cause ?)

You should get some calibration weights and check your scales...something went wrong here.

What am I missing here? The first recipe shows 150 grams of oil, the second recipe shows 300 grams of oil. That would make up the difference?

They're saying the opposite happened. They are saying they got more from the first recipe than the second.
 
This sounds very strange. I assume the density of oils can vary a bit, but not that much. E.g., no matter what recipe I use, I always know that I need about 2 lb of oils to fill my mold. If there were so much variance from oil to oil, my mold calculations should be terribly off at least sometimes...
 
You must have confused the two batches after making them. Senior moments happen ;)
 
Can a 33% lye concentration give so much difference and reduce the soap pcs ?
As the 2nd recipe was with 33% lye concentration.

The 1st recipe which gave me more soaps for 150grams, after making the soap. I can still feel the oil (Superfat was 5%).
After 2 days, soap is still oily!
Can this be my scale gave me a wrong reading ?

The 2nd recipe (did with a another scale) of 300grams which gave me only 4pcs, can this is exact ?

What is your guys opinion, can a 300grams of oils how many pcs of soap can you get ? (Size of soap is abit thick, i try to post a pic soon once I un-mold it)
 
Saqqa, try weighing all the bars of soap together, first from one batch, then from the next. Compare them to your printed recipes. What do you find?
 
4pcs from 300g oils doesn't sound unreasonable to me (I usually have 2lb ~~ 900g of oils and it gives me 9 1-in slices).
Getting 8 slices from 150g oils, on the other hand, seems kind of miraculous. Unless the pieces are very small, of course...
As Millie said, you may try to measure the soap and see if it is in the ballpark of your oil + lye weight (there is of course the water, some of which will evaporate, and your additives).
 
1st recipe - each soap weights around 120grms x 8pcs
Seems like a serious scale problem!
 
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