EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[Sally Sunshine]

Ralphiest, that reminded me of the Alaskan show I watch, they collected oyster shells and put them in with coal from the beach in a wash drum in layers and they cooked them all night, after cooling they separated them and crushed them for lime for the concrete for the wood stack house or whatever they are called. Cordwood house!! that's it, was cool to see it done.

 

[hippiestink]

you don't need parchment at the ends of your mold?
Thanks @hippiestink

I screwed up, I stupidly listened to someone online and added sea salt after the lye to the whole batter. ughhh now I have salt spots and for some reason my soap turned brown on the bottom!!! I swear this lesson is baffling me.

I NEED A CHEMISTRY CLASS STAT ughhh I am reading my stearic acid bag and did you know that the % of impurities has a great effect on calculating the lye - Soapcalc has Stearic acid at a SAP of 0.198 for its calculations, if I am making a shave soap or anything of the like this effects the KOH amt. I then looked at different stearics online and I swear they are all different! Stearic is made up of % of = Hexadecanoic, Octadecanoic & Tetradecanoic Acids, looking them up I find Octadecanoic is the stearic, the Hexadecanoic is Palmitic (also the highest percentage!) and the Tetradeanoic is Myristic acid! What all that means is when we are using soap calc to figure our lyes it can be off a significant amount for something so important in a product. So I am all confused and wondering if making ones own recipe is worth the time of thought! Or simply copy someone elses and make that! <bangs head> anyway, yeah I read way too much and think too much AND research way too much that I begin to question things that most don't.

Anyhoooo...... my titanium dioxide came so I have more to play around with later, for now I need to figure out why I keep getting dark batches. I assume because its gellin and the sugar? although last batch wasn't so dark. its CP ph is 9 after cut. I refuse to make plain soaps, I want to be an all Goats Milk soaper, but I must admit those beautiful fancy soaps people make are something to look at!! I must add, this bar of soap I just made doesn't look great at all, but WOW does it lather, hands were so soft after and mmmm it smells so good with dried sage and lemongrass!!

ps.... With the amount of tallow I like to use, I have to soap at 120-125 degrees or I have it solidify on the sides of the pot and then get mucky thick before the NaOH how on earth do you deal with 100% tallow! you must soap hot as well???? what stinks is the goats milk does best as a cold soaping 70 degrees or so and not gel. CP, I am really not into CP, but I cant seem to get HP fluid enough to work well and look half decent.

ok I am rambling, ill shut up now!!

UPS just dropped off my gear ties!!
Cant wait to try it! Now if I get a lighter batch I may be able to do a half decent swirl LOL!!!! These things would be awesome to hold chickens feet for butcher!! like big waterproof strong bread ties!!! so cool!

Nah for my "ugly" home use bars I don't bother since those batches usually pop out okay on their own. Parchment is reserved for baking and for customers.

It's trial and error really. A lot of my first soaps ended up nasty, as long as it works just write down what happened and make a note to NOT do it again to avoid what's wrong with it.

I find a lot of green micas tend to morph colors at first then either stay that way OR go back to green when fully cured. Give it a couple days then check the color. It could also be the heat you're cooking to is browning the sugars (in CP sugar causes additional heating) so if you know it'll get hot then put the whole thing in the fridge so it won't heat up. If I'm wanting a matte finish to my soap I always avoid gel phase this way and most of the time it works.

Lard soaps are the ones I always have to HP because of the false trace/seizing issue. Of couse muddy colors can also be due to other oils like olive oil which have a natural color to them. It's a number of factors, but don't give up! It's totally possible to use a recipe you make yourself. Try going simpler, maybe start with two or three oils and tweak and experiment until you have something that works. Write down everything you try when you make a recipe and take notes! It really helped me in the beginning so I could figure out how to troubleshoot and fix problems.

As for your stearic acid, I'm not sure how that effects soap since i don't use it. It's really not a needed addition to soap so you could try not using it in a batch and see how it effects things.

 

[hippiestink]

Don't get discouraged! Soap is a lot of trial and error. It takes a lot of experimenting and failed batches to find something you like. I don't get it right a lot of times lol, case in point I had to redo a bar for the winter line twice before I got what I liked. And today the recipe I tried is a little more cleansing than I like, probably too much coconut oil and not enough superfat! Don't be scared to get creative and try risky things.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Ralphiest, btw you can make potassium hydroxide but that's not the type used for hard bars, that's for more liquid uses. Although I don't know how the sodium hydroxide is made.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Nah for my "ugly" home use bars I don't bother since those batches usually pop out okay on their own. Parchment is reserved for baking and for customers.

It's trial and error really. A lot of my first soaps ended up nasty, as long as it works just write down what happened and make a note to NOT do it again to avoid what's wrong with it.

I find a lot of green micas tend to morph colors at first then either stay that way OR go back to green when fully cured. Give it a couple days then check the color. It could also be the heat you're cooking to is browning the sugars (in CP sugar causes additional heating) so if you know it'll get hot then put the whole thing in the fridge so it won't heat up. If I'm wanting a matte finish to my soap I always avoid gel phase this way and most of the time it works.

Lard soaps are the ones I always have to HP because of the false trace/seizing issue. Of couse muddy colors can also be due to other oils like olive oil which have a natural color to them. It's a number of factors, but don't give up! It's totally possible to use a recipe you make yourself. Try going simpler, maybe start with two or three oils and tweak and experiment until you have something that works. Write down everything you try when you make a recipe and take notes! It really helped me in the beginning so I could figure out how to troubleshoot and fix problems.

As for your stearic acid, I'm not sure how that effects soap since i don't use it. It's really not a needed addition to soap so you could try not using it in a batch and see how it effects things.

I have lowered the amnts of Olive as that darkens it. I am working with just a few oils, and added shea butter SF

 

[BullChick]

What makes a bar of soap melt the first time it gets wet?

 

[hippiestink]

I have lowered the amnts of Olive as that darkens it. I am working with just a few oils, and added shea butter SF

Don't be afraid to tweak or try again! Soap is hard, but when you finally hit on what works it's super rewarding.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Don't get discouraged! Soap is a lot of trial and error. It takes a lot of experimenting and failed batches to find something you like. I don't get it right a lot of times lol, case in point I had to redo a bar for the winter line twice before I got what I liked. And today the recipe I tried is a little more cleansing than I like, probably too much coconut oil and not enough superfat! Don't be scared to get creative and try risky things.

I hear you on the Coconut oil, whoda thunk it would be so drying!! errr cleaning lol

I never knew that, my first batch had a lot of it in it, I have since taken that down big time. I added in almond oil, I really like it too.

 

[BantyChooks]

on backwards for what?

Hanging birds to process.

I will need each of your addresses in PM so I can send you a bar of Moldy Wonder Bread

 

[hippiestink]

What makes a bar of soap melt the first time it gets wet?

What do you mean by "melting" exactly? Water in general will cause a hard bar of true soap to melt into essentially a snot-consistency slurry if allowed to sit due to the glycerin content. Detergent bars will melt for similar reasons, the chemical bonds of the detergent can't hold their solid shape for too long because water degrades the crystalline structure. Glycerin soaps will sweat glycerin in damp weather because of the moisture and will melt because of the glycerin content.

The best way to ensure a harder, less melt-y bar is a combination of allowing the water to cure out properly (for most recipes you'll see out there this takes about 3-4 weeks but with olive oil soap it takes up to a full year!) and using a combination of hard and soft fats. Also ALWAYS use a soap dish with adequate air flow for all kinds of soap/detergent bars! Never let them sit in direct streams of water or in standing water.