Teach Soap

(although I think I may know)

Mkay, the deets:

Fresh soap 1 day old, had shavings of fully cured soap in it.
Mushed into little flat blobs, placed in stainless bowl, resting over a pot of boiling water.
Pot was on about an hour, water got to steam/boiling stage.
Stirred a couple times, started to get the translucent look, then walked away for a few.
Water boiled out of the bottom pan!!! I found out because it was going to translucent, then came back to crumbles of soap.
When I figured it out, I added more water to the lower pot, starting anew. Never did get translucency again, and now I have what looks like brown sugar crumbles for cobbler!

Did I essentially *bake* the soap? I tried adding an ounce or so of water, thinking maybe it just dried out. The soap ate that up, and is still crumbly. When I smash it in my hand it *will* come together, feels kinda waxy. Scent is gone for the most part.

All this because I noticed a few flecks of dye in the finished bars!

Double boiler does not work well for rebatch. You are better off using the oven, crock pot or the microwave.
Sounds like your soap dried out too much. Can you make soap balls out of it?

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

They will ball together, but still have a kinda crumbly-ness about them. Grrr!

Sounds like it was cooked too long. Try adding a lilttle bit of glycerin to it to see if it cuts down on the crumbles.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I personally wouldn't play with it any more.
Either use it for laundry or toss it.

^^^I'm gonna give it one more go...if only by accident.

I made a 6# batch, to split for 2 different scents. Something is/was amiss with them....I think not enough stirring trying to coordinate splitting, coloring, swirling, doing a gig. Obvious wet lye droplets today. It's been 36 hours. I don't know if it would have fixed itself or not, but I was not about to find out. So, I tried micro rebatch w/ziplock on the one batch....and it worked AMAZINGLY well! So, i put a teense bit more water in the 1st yucky batch, and nuked it just a few minutes to see what would happen...it appears we have the capability of rebatch!!! So, last ditch effort....one more go...

And I'm soooo thankful for the SL....it made a big difference, I think!

ETA: I'm starting to question the squirrel mixer. GRRR!

Can you get a stick blender instead of the squirrel mixer? It operates at higher RPM's than a stick blender, so maybe something happened then.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

^^^Yeah, I have one already, I got the squirrel mixer to kind of "move up". Put the drill speed on low/lowish. I think something bad happened because I split the batch and walked away and was playing around for awhile...like, not enough agitation and the lye fell out of suspension. The wet lye droplets were in the face of the mold, not like holes throughout.

Here's to trying again today!

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Is the mold that you used linerless?
If you had to line it, a couple of drops of water should not make any difference.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

^^^It was individual bar molds, not log mold, so they were not lined.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

:GAH:

Well, at least I got over my fear of rebatch!