Teach Soap

I was trying to understand a lye and water calculation (below) and I guess I don't understand how to put this in a soap calc.

4.82 water (20% discount)
2.43 lye (15% discount)

I was trying to recreate the recipe on soap calc and was wondering where you would fill in a field to show a 20% discount for water and a 15% for lye. Here are the fields they offer you:



Water as % of Oils
Lye Concentration Set %
Water : Lye Ratio Set

Super Fat %
Fragrance
Oz per Lb
Amount


Can you explain the discounting of water and lye to me in terms of how I put that in a lye calculator to get a 20% water discount and a 15% lye discount?

Which calculator are you using? Most calculators have a lye discount amount that they will either let you fill out or they give as a sliding scale. I don't normally see them going up to 15% lye discount though.

The water discount is easy to figure out though if the lye calculator doesn't do it for you:

What you want to do is get your recipe and do the math yourself. So, if it says you want a 20% water discount and the recipe calls for 10 oz. of water, it's a formulation that looks like this:

10 x (1-.2=. = 8 oz. of water for a 20% water discount.

Does this help?

_________________
Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

It does! Thanks!

I think of Lye Discount as the same thing as Superfat. In other words if you use less lye, the amount of unsaponified oils should be higher when the lye is done it's thing. Remember that the higher your superfat %, the higher your risk of DOS or rancid oils long term... (but don't let that throw you).

Instead of water discount I think in terms of lye concentration. In the long run you want most of the water you add to evaporate from the finished soap... also known as the curing process. Less water to start with means a faster cure. But obviously you need enough water to thoroughly dissolve the lye and to keep the soap from seizing, overheating, or just tracing too fast for you.

You may do better to abandon the idea of water discount and just experiment with different lye concentrations until you find what you are happy with. On Soapcalc you can set EITHER "Lye Concentration" OR "Water:Lye ratio" but not both. They are the same thing. I use a 2:1 ratio which is the same as 33.3333% Lye Concentration.

HTH!

_________________
- Mickey!

Ahhh, so much to learn. So much soap to make!

Lisa