Teach Soap

I have loved reading the forum and after a few years, this is the first post. My last two soaping adventures have not gone well. My lye is now 2 years old and I wonder if that is the issue. The white soap had lye or water pockets when I cut it and specks of darker white in it that were maybe ungelled? The recipe was 20% co, 50% oo, 25% po and 5% castor oil with 3% sodium lactate. No fragrance. I did add shavings from cured CP soap before I poured it into the mold. I used SoapCalc for 48 oz. I tried the zap test but didn't think it really stung.

The batch before this one was the brown soap. Looks like it didn't fully gel because there are those light areas.
My recipes really seems fine.

Was your lye free flowing or did it have any chunks or clumps in it? I use sodium lactate at about 1.5%. I haven't used it any higher. Did you use any milk? Any chance of DOS due to older oils or butters?

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

The water that came out when I cut the soap was really clear. As was the lye water that I put in originally. My oils were just received from BB. So maybe it was the SL. This was a 3 pound batch - more than I usually make. I just don't know.

also no milk. Knew there was one other question.

If your scale was accurate, you soaped at a reasonable temp and the soap gelled, I would try rebatch. Did you discount your water?

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

I put 5% in the superfat/discount area. I didn't change anything that the calculater came up with. I did rebatch the soap yesterday and it looks better. No water when I cut it. The soap is kind of an off white but for some reason their are still bright white spots. They look just like soap that didn't take a color.

At what temp did you soap at?

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

I usually try to soap around 111-115 degrees.

Then I don't know. That's all I could think of.

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

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try again with a smaller batch and see what happens!

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