trouble shooting soap
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Soaper's Crafts :: What's in the pot? Discuss your formulation ideas and questions here... :: Soap Making :: Cold & Hot Process Forum
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trouble shooting soap
I just had a disastrously gone wrong milk based soap...
been reading up a bit and found this from Kathy Miller...
might be of some help to someone...
a great site on soapmaking :
millersoap
Troubleshooting your Botched batch PDF
been reading up a bit and found this from Kathy Miller...
might be of some help to someone...
a great site on soapmaking :
millersoap
Troubleshooting your Botched batch PDF
Symptom | Possible Cause | Remedy |
Soap has watery pockets | Slight separation of lye solution | If tiny, may be absorbed during cure. If large, remelt the batch. |
Soap has small oily pockets | Is often associated with fragrance or adding superfatting at trace | If tiny, may be absorbed during cure. If large, remelt the batch... being sure to put all liquids back in the pot and not tossing anything out. You might consider putting all of your special superfatting oils in the soap at the beginning and not trying to stir them in at trace. |
Soap doesn't set up | Not enough lye or inadequate saponification during first 24 hours | Troubleshoot recipe and procedures, make any needed adjustments and remelt |
Soap is brittle or has cracks | Hard, dry and brittle at cutting time is generally too much lye in the recipe. | If determined that there was too much lye, remelting is in order and adding in the missing amount of needed oil. Some soaps can seem brittle because of the types of base oils used and the need for more water in the recipe. |
Soap has layer of water (lye solution) underneath | This is full blown separation... bad, bad! ;-) | Remelting is necessary! Double check your recipe for lye to fat ratio before proceeding, just in case. Be sure to save ALL liquids from your original recipe for the remelt. |
Soap is crumbly and DRY Crumbly and dry... looking rather like laundry detergent powder... | is usually the result of a batch that is lye heavy. | Troubleshoot recipe, make needed adjustments, address the issue of how much oil was missing and add that back when remelting. |
Soap is soft and crumbly | Soft and crumbly... soap that just wants to disintegrate when you cut it but when rubbed between the fingers produces an oiliness... | is generally caused from inadequate mixing and saponification. There is usually a factor of too much heat loss during the stirring period. The smaller the batch, the quicker it will lose heat. With hand stirring, it could be from heat loss during stirring time and/or the stirring was not vigorous enough or until a real trace was reached. With a stick blender, it might be heat loss and too much mixing without frequent breaks, which created the illusion of trace when the thickening was really from hardening fat particles or emulsification. If the recipe you started with was quite small, you should raise your initial mixing temperatures. As an example, soap that might have been blended at 110 degrees would be mixed at 120 or 125 degrees. People who make really huge batches will often drop their temperature below 100 degrees since large batches retain and build up more heat after pouring. If the soap begins to look grainy right away after mixing in the lye solution, it's a good idea to apply some gentle bottom heat to the pot for a minute or two... until you see it smooth out and develop a satiny texture on the surface. You will be doing your stirring during this warming time. Then turn the burner OFF. For those using the stick blender, review the suggested stick blending technique on the “Modern Procedures Page” and be sure you mix in short bursts and turn the blender off and hand stir in between. This will ensure that you are not fooled by a "false trace" and pour your soap before it's really ready. |
Soap separated before it ever gets out of the pot! | This is really depressing! :-( When soap separates or "rices" in the pot it's usually from the fragrance that was just added. | This is generally a fragrance oil problem. Not all fragrances are tested and appropriate for use in cold process soap. Be sure to get your fragrances from a supplier that assures they will work for you because they have tested them. Most essential oils will not pose this problem. The exception would be clove essential oil which will accelerate trace. Some fragrance oils that qualify as being "okay" might still accelerate trace and you can often alleviate some of those issues by increasing the amount of water in your recipe to the higher range of what is recommended. |
Soap has a pliable texture during the first few weeks | I have no clue! | I've only had a couple of batches do this in my hand stirring days and for the life of me I never knew what caused it. The soap had the texture of modeling clay or soft taffy, but in all other ways seemed to work just fine. |
Soap has developed "ash"... a white powdery formation on sides or most often the top surface | Inadequate mixing, not enough heat retention (no gel phase) | I used to battle this all the time before I started using a stick blender for mixing and had my batches go through a gel phase. Pouring into a mold that is deeper than one inch will help the soap retain more heat and gel. There could still be a tendency for the top surface to develop some ash during cure, even with a good gelled batch. I also notice that if I don't trim off the "rind" that is formed on the top at cutting time, that rind part will often ooze what appears to be glycerin during the curing period. My first recommendation for ash problems is to give the stick blender a try and be sure your soap goes through a gel phase. Some folks also have good luck with putting an ounce or two of beeswax in their recipe or covering their newly poured soap with a sheet of mylar plastic or some freezer paper... plastic side toward the soap. Sealing out the air during the first day or two seems to deter some of the ash formation on batches that are prone to this. |
"D.O.S." or "Dreaded Orange Spots" have formed during cure | Hmmm... this is still a little bit mysterious, but generally is going to happen with batches that are overly superfatted or sometimes in conditions of high heat and humidity where the soaps are stored. | Keep your superfatting to a medium range... I prefer from 4 to 5% superfat. Try to keep the finished soaps in a cool environment where the humidity is not too high. |
Soap is lighter around the edges than it is in the center | This happens when soap goes through a gel phase but the part that is in contact with the mold doesn't get as hot and gel. It will have a more opaque appearance than the gelled center and might be more flaky during cutting. | Be sure your soap gels all the way to the edges before you uncover it. Also... if the room temperature is cool and you're working with a wooden mold, you can prewarm the mold in a SLOW oven for about 10 minutes before pouring in your fresh batch of soap. This will prevent the mold from robbing too much heat from the outside layer of the soap. |
riaan- Posts : 366
Join date : 2010-07-01
Age : 48
Re: trouble shooting soap
I am sorry you had trouble Riaan, kathy's site is one of the best go to sites for soap making for many reasons, she has a wealth of information for sure.
Re: trouble shooting soap
Great info Riaan. Thanks.
cwayneu- Admin
- Posts : 119
Join date : 2010-07-07
Age : 74
Location : Indiana
Soaper's Crafts :: What's in the pot? Discuss your formulation ideas and questions here... :: Soap Making :: Cold & Hot Process Forum
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