Teach Soap

Hello again clever people, I would appreciate some more help please.

Our soaps are crumbling around the edges when we slice them - I'll walk you through our method ...........
Recipe is...........................

SINGLE BATCH
Basic Goatmilk Soap – No water
(approx. 1.05kg)
Lye 168.78 gr (5% superfat)
Slushy frozen 300 - 350 millilitres of Goatmilk

50 gr Almond Oil, Sweet
100 gr Castor Oil
250 gr Coconut Oil
500 gr Palm Oil
150 gr Rice Bran Oil

My goatmilk is mostly frozen/slushy when I mix in the lye, this way I now have a lovely "whiteish" goatmilk soap.
Bill melts the solids first on low and mixes in the liquid oils - takes off hot plate when all is nicely mixed then stirs now and then bringing the temp down with a bucket of ice if needed.

I don't worry now about the temp of my lye mix being the same as the oils, we just make sure the temps are touchable (quickly) - I then pour in the lye mix and Bill starts to trace. If we have a straight goatmilk with say oatmeal or other naturals in it we get to a light trace, mix the ingredients in then pour into the PVC tubes - apart from the Honey we haven't had any problems at all. If we are spliting the tube into two colours.....say plain goatmilk one side and scented the other side - Bill get to a very light trace, splits the mix into two, I scent and colour one part then we wour into each side of the mould.

We did a Goatmilk & Lavender and a Goatmilk & Daffodils and they look ever so nice - perfect scenting and the split colours were great. We left in the mould for 24hours, unmoulded and then left the log again for another 24hours then this afternoon cut the logs only to find - especially the Goatmilk & Lavender - the edges crumbled ????

This recipe is a very hard bar and sets very quickly - any thoughts would be very welcomed or idea's about what we are doing wrong perhaps????

Thank You
Ness

I don't have my soap calc handy, so I can't check your reicpe right now. Here's what comes to mind; Did you reach true trace? I don't take temps either. If the oils and lye water are just a bit warmer then the temp of my hands, that's when I combine all. Is it possible that your lye water is getting too cool? Is the crumbling mostly on the edges or is it throughout? It's possible that your soap is getting only a partial gel. The gelled part would be fine. The ungelled part could be crumbly.

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

Hi Irena,

I use the MMS calculator and have just recalculated - the lye should have been 148.97 and I used 168.78 !!!! I did a pH test last night and the colour was between levels which indicated the pH levels were ok - not as good as the natural goatmilks but ok. Would too much lye have caused the crumbling???

Yes, I do remember that the bowl of lye mix did seem very cool to the touch but didn't worry about this because of a previous soaper who said they leave their lye for 24 hours before mixing - so will remember to check that from now on.

Because I was worried about how some oils/colours accelerate trace, I was the one who told Bill to get to a very very light trace, so we should have used the stick blender just a tad more (?).

The crumbling is only on the edges, and I've never seen our soaps in a gel phase, once again haven't worried about a gel phase as I did read that some batches gel and some don't. Remember that we mould in PVC piping so I can only check on the top of the logs - the batches harden very quickly - very easy to get out of the pipes - Bill made up a beaut press but we very rarely use it as when Bill knocks the base off the pipe, not log afterwards if falls out!!!!

Cheers
Ness

Too much lye would definitely make for a crumbly soap. What was the superfat difference between the two amounts of lye? Too many things can go wrong with melted oils and room temp lye. I would get both at around 110 degrees. If you are new to soapmaking, get yourself a thermometer til you become very familiar with the process. If the soap didn't gel you can get crumbly edges. Partial gel or lye heavy soap will also do that. Paper testing strips are not very accurate. If you want a more accurate measurement, get yourself a pH meter. Or test your soap for zap with your tongue.

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

Irena, thanks once again for bringing me out of the clouds I sometimes float in!!!! We've been making goatmilk naturals for a long time and (touch wood ) no problems - the honey we had trouble with and still do (!!!) it's in my mind that that recipe is a hurdle but we'll get there !!!!

As for the gel phase - that's got me stumped!!!! I've looked at the posts on what the gel phase looks like, but I can't see it in the tubes - ???????

We always calculate a 5% lye discount and usually if I'm 0.001g to 0.010g under in the lye I don't worry about it - do you think we should work on perhaps 6 - 8% ???

I'll rebatch these two batchs of soap, I don't want to waste them - I like the look of rebatched soap - very rustic/country look.

Well, I know now what I did wrong - too much lye (silly typo error) and temps - will get those correct for sure. On the positive side the soap scents and colours came out really well - I like the two colours in a round soap.

Thank you once again for your help.
Ness

You're welcome. 2.3 bs is a pretty small recipe. If you have enough PVS molds, why not run it through a lye calc and double it or triple it? That way if there is a tiny error in lye, you would still be safe. I normally superfat at 7%. If I go anything below that, I find it drying to my skin.

Since you've been making soap for a long time you have a good customer base, no? Why not go with bigger batches? It takes about the same time to make a 2 lb. batch as it does to make 20 lb. batch; at least for me. My local hardware store will cut the PVC pipe to whatever lenght I like. The price is quite reasonable.

If you have an infrared (or a laser) thermometer, you can check the outside of the mold if it's gelling by the temp. If it goes above 150, that usually means it's gelling. I notice with my PVC pipe that as soon as I see this translucent, wet look at the top of the soap, I know that the soap in the PVC pipe has gelled all the way.

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

I was on the computer looking for a ph tester and your post came through.

Our goatmilk soaps sell really well, Oct, Nov & Dec 2011 we ran out of the goatmilk naturals and only now are we getting our stock back up. Because people are buying goatmilk more than ever now, we thought we'd start doing the scents and colours - no problems there as I said but I was so silly not to check my recipe for typo's - Bill waiting downstairs and he's like a kid with a new toy ( )!!!!

The recipe size I posted is only for one log - we make just the one log when we're trying something new out, that way I don't have to rebatch too much if something goes wrong. We usually make a double batch, Bill cut the PVC pipes to fit a single batch (a single batch holds approx. 1.050kgs or 2.31485 lb) of mix cuts 14 cakes @ 113g - 117g per cake and I've printed off (and rechecked ) recipes for double batches which we use when we make more of one type of soap - we always check our stock and when we have just 10 cakes of one soaps left we make another double batch - doesn't always work that way of course - I only have one Emu & Lavender cake left but Emu Oil soaps don't sell as well as the Goatmilk soaps - I'm waiting on more EO's hopefully to arrive today or by latest tomorrow so this weekend will see us downstairs knee deep in soap making.

Why I was so annoyed with myself was that we do have an infrared thermometer, but "I thought" it didn't matter if the lye mix was a cooler temp than the oils - only thing was I took that "thought" a little too far!!!! But we'll make sure the temps of the mixes are around 100F - 110F before we combine them - another thing was I was a little aprehensive about putting the scents/colour into a too warm mix.

I'll sure test the PVC pipes as per your suggestion - thank you

Will let you know how our next batch turns out - will post some pics for others to see as well.

Cheers
Ness

I'm looking forward to your pics. I find that up to 10 degree difference in oils and lye is ok. Anything more then that and I start having trouble.

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

Oh No... another reason to use my laser thermometer. And to think I had just hid it!
Congrats Aponi on finding out what went wrong. I am sure your batches in the future will come out fantastic!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!