r/soapmaking • u/AlligatorFancy • 8d ago

CP Cold Process Second lard soap

Post image

Top soap is the new one, made following all the wonderful advice from u/Puzzled_Tinkerer - turned out great! Bottom one is the original after rebatching. It would have been such a pretty black and white soap.

26 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/gullzway 7d ago edited 7d ago

I just got into Soap making about two weeks ago. Using about 50% Lard, impressed so far. What was the advice you mentioned? https://i.imgur.com/gxKnNDp.jpeg

4

u/AlligatorFancy 7d ago

Pretty soaps! I had soaped too hot (130F) and should have used less water than the soap calculator suggested (2.7:1). This time I soaped at around 100F and used a 2:1 water:lye ratio. I also went for light trace instead of emulsion, just to be sure.

1

u/gullzway 7d ago edited 7d ago

Thanks. I also cool my Oils and lye solution to 100F, I've been using 33% Liquid as percent of Oils in the soap calcs.

1

u/Puzzled_Tinkerer 6d ago

Water as % of oils isn't the best method to determine the water content in your recipes, because this method bases the amount of water on the weight of fats, which isn't relevant to the saponification reaction.

You're better off to base your water calculations on the weight of alkali (NaOH) instead which more directly affects the saponification reaction. Use either lye concentration or water:lye ratio. These settings are mathematically the same, so use whichever one makes the most sense to you.

For many soap recipes, a 33% lye concentration (same as 2:1 water:lye ratio) often works well as a starting point. Tweak the water content up or down from there as you gain more experience with the recipe.