Worth rebatching?

[The Lazy Destroyer]

Made some CP soap and results were okay but some bars turned out with a white crusty substance, not sure if lye or what. Other bars seemed to turn out ok.
I'm just curious if this is worth rebatching? Seems a bit much to simply try to scrape off.

Recipe was 75% rendered bacon fat and 25% coconut oil.
Water:Lye ratio at 2:1, mixture was 29% of oil weight (5% super fat)

I made two mistakes here for sure. I got into a rush I guess and mixed my lye water and fat/oils before they cooled off, I can't remember the temps but they were hot... maybe 175°. I think they were within 20-25° of each other.

Second mistake was it was my first time with a stick mixer and it traced WAY faster then I have ever seen when hand-mixing. Like a lot faster. It was at a decent trace by the time I added a little bit of clove EO and a little coloring, and traced further by the time I got into the individual molds. By then it didn't want to flatten out. I also poured really sloppily because of it.

Here are the results:

The two bars at the bottom have a section of crusty white stuff on top. The other bars look decent other than the tops not being very flat.

Here's a cutaway of one of the "good" bars:

They look okay to me from my (way limited) experience. Guess they didn't gel phase. Not sure if that is a big deal or not. I'm not at the point where I'm going for exact colors, still learning.

Pictures of the other bars to follow...

 

[The Lazy Destroyer]

Closeup of one of the crappy bars:

Cutaway:

The white stuff is only at the surface, 98% of the bar looks like the other ones.

Obviously I goofed the temperature and pouring at a heavy trace made the tops look pretty weak. Is this worth rebatching (at least to resolve the whiteness on the tops of some) or should I just try to grate off the tops somehow? I was surprised at how decent some of them turned out, as I figured mixing at max temperatures would have goofed them up completely. But not sure if there is something I'm not seeing that may be a problem.

I was planning on reheating these in oven bags and re-molding... but maybe it's ok as is?

 

[Obsidian]

I wouldn't rebatch just to fix a cosmetic issue. If the white doesn't zap, just use the bars as is.

 

[The Lazy Destroyer]

Oops, forgot to mention, these pictures were taken about a week after making them. They actually sat in the molds the whole week as I traveled for work since then.
This was also the first time I"ve used anything other than pure rendered bacon fat, tho I didn't have much of a problem adding the coconut oil into my routine.

 

[The Lazy Destroyer]

I wouldn't rebatch just to fix a cosmetic issue. If the white doesn't zap, just use the bars as is.

Just tested, white sections don't seem to give any noticeable zaps.

 

[Obsidian]

They are good to go then. If the looks really bother you, cut them off. You can save the scraps of all your soap to rebatch later.

 

[Susie]

I am with Obsidian. If no zap, then just go with it. And I would not worry about leaving soap in individual silicone molds for a week. That should be fine. It is only when you have to cut a loaf of soap that it might get too hard to cut easily if you leave it that long.

 

[Seawolfe]

It looks like soda ash, if it is you can just wash it off with a little scrubbing - use old nylons or a bath scrubby and leave the bars to dry. Makes them nice and shiney.

 

[IrishLass]

You can rebatch or not- that's totally up to you, but I agree with Obsidian- there's really no need to if it's just a cosmetic issue. If you do rebatch, though, the oven bag method is a great way to do it.

It sounds like you had a combination of things going on all at once that contributed to the outcome- 1) water discount 2) high heat 3) stickblending and 4) adding clove EO (an infamously known seizer). You may have been just fine with any one of them on their own, or even a combo of 2 or more of them going on, but to have all 4 of them going on at once seems to be the cause of your extra-speedy results, although I must say that clove oil is usually known to be a big enough trouble-maker all on it's own. lol

If the white stuff doesn't zap, it's more than likely just harmless sodium carbonate (i.e., soda ash). If so, it washes right off with some water. Grating it or planning it off works fine, too. Or- like Obsidian said- if it doesn't zap, you can just use the bars 'as-is'.


IrishLass

 

[The Lazy Destroyer]

Thanks for the replies. I searched on soap ash and the pictures I've found definitely make me think it's the same thing. Will try spraying with alcohol the next go around. And of course making sure the temperatures are correct when mixing...

Bummer to hear clove EO is a trouble maker, really like that one the most. So far I haven't had too much issues but I have been using low amounts too. I may try something else (or nothing at all to experiment) to see if it changes anything. This is only my third batch so I'm still pretty new to this.

I'm also using a cheap store-bought coloring dye and will try something more "proper" for the next go-around, one of the reasons I've been sticking with low color batches because I'm afraid of adding too much of this cheap stuff.