Zappy liquid pre cutting?

[Mockingbird Ramble]

I made my second batch of pine tar soap and just put it in the freezer to unmould, it is seeping a small amount of very zappy liquid from the sides. Any idea why?

CO 15%
OO 32%
Lard 32%
Castor 6%
Pine tar 15%

I used salted tea for 38% water and SF at 9%.

I had it happen on another batch as well, cut it and it is cureing fine.

 

[pamielynn]

How much lye did you use? I've heard pine tar can be hard to soap...

 

[Mockingbird Ramble]

71 grams Lye and 228 grams water. 23% .Yes it can be tricky, but so worth it! Love my first batch, and gave away quite a bit of it. My batches are normally 500-600 gram so I get maybe 8 bars out of a batch.

 

[DeeAnna]

I wonder about the salt in your tea, especially since you have another rather unpredictable ingredient -- the pine tar -- as a complicating factor. The old method of making "boiled" soap was to make the soap with an excess of lye, then remove the lye and glycerin with heavily salted water, since soap is not particularly soluble in brine (salt water). I realize people use salt in their soap recipes, but I what I don't recall is anyone doing so with a pine tar recipe. Try the recipe w/o the salt next time?

 

[Mockingbird Ramble]

This batch is the same as the first pine tar barch, which I did not have this problem with. The other zappy seeping soap was an avacado oil soap.

On the first batch it sat moulded for a week before I could cut it as I was out of town. Maybe it did have the zappy seep but evaporated before I unmoulded it?

 

[Mockingbird Ramble]

I unmoulded it, and while super ugly (gloppy) it does not zap and I think it is going to be a great using bar.

Next time no salt....

 

[DeeAnna]

Wish I had some great insights to share with you -- the salt is the only thing I was wondering about.

I made a 10% pine tar soap a few weeks ago, and it behaved beautifully for me. My oils were sunflower, coconut oil, high oleic safflower, and lard. I didn't use any castor, even though I usually do in my other recipes. I had read some comments about castor causing trouble in this type of soap, and I figured why borrow trouble?

I added sugar, dry cows milk, and essential oils to the oil phase and thoroughly stirred the pine tar into the oils as well. I kept the oils as absolutely cool as possible -- I warmed the lard and CO just barely enough to get them soft, then added the room temp soft oils. I used a 27% lye solution made with cold distilled water and only hand stirred the batter -- no stick blender. I had 5-10 minutes to stir the lye into the oil phase before trace, so I had enough time to thoroughly blend the lye into the oils. I have wondered if this type of soap can trace so fast that people don't have enough time to get a uniform batter stirred together.

I put it into a loaf mold, put it into the oven at 170 for about an hour. The batter was so cool to begin with, it barely warmed to room temp after the hour in the oven was up. I took the mold out of the oven and let it sit on the counter overnight without any insulation or cover. I noticed an hour or two after taking it out of the oven that the batter was finally noticeably warm to the touch and it stayed that way until morning. It's hard to tell with a soap this dark, but I think the soap gelled later in the night. The soap was a little softer than usual when I unmolded it 24 hours after pour, but it still came out of the mold easily and cut well. It's curing nicely.

I don't particularly care for the scent, even with EOs, but it's not horrible -- the soap has a mild woodsy burnt-rubber aroma. DH likes the scent and wants a bar for washing up before hunting. I'm sure my other hunting and fishing friends will be interested too, and that's really all that matters.