Smooshy soap....grrrrrr

[Angel91805]

Here's my latest saga....

On Sunday, I made four batches of soap. I had recently gotten PKO from Oils By Nature. Now this PKO looked more like coconut oil than my usual dry, chunky PKO. I used it anyway. BAD MOVE. On Monday, I had 4 lovely batches of lye heavy soap. I emailed OBN and got back an "oh well....our PKO is different from other supplier's PKO...would you like it's SAP value?" Um....WTF? You label your product as the same as anyone else's and THEN offer me the SAP value? Turns out it's new SAP value was 254 (vs. MMS's 237 and FNWL's 220!). So I quickly ordered my old PKO and gave my soap some time. By Tuesday, no more lye zap! YEAH! On Wednesday...I finally cut the two soaps in the MC slab molds. Now....5 days later, and 5 days being exposed to the air...all four of the batches are smooshy. Meaning, if you barely press your thumb...they dent. I can't trim them/plane them...can barely pick them up!

What in the heck do I do with these? Is there hope to saving them?

Donna

[Carrie]

I'm confused. Are you making liquid soap. I just checked the SAP value of Palm Kernal at Sooz and it says

KOH NaOH

0.247 - 0.176 Palm Kernel

The KOH is the potasium hydroxide and the NaOH is the Sodium Hydroxide.

If you are using the .254 SAP for regular CP you should start all over and re-check all of your numbers.

You may want to re-email them and check again.

I personally won't use OBN but many swear by them.

[Angel91805]

No, I am not making liquid soap.

I use the calculator at sooz as well.

Soapmakers that make bar soap use NaOH sap values, which are derived from the saponification value calculated by laboratories (KOH sap value). To convert one to the other, multiply or divide by 56.11/40 (the ratio of the molecular weights). So, the 254 is actually the KOH value in mg to saponify 1 gram of fat. From Nature With Love's website explains this much bette than I....I'll just copy it over....

To convert actual SAP Values into converted values ready to work with in ounces:

• Solid Soap (NaOH): Divide the SAP Value by 1422.9803
  
• Liquid Soap (KOH): Divide the SAP Value by 1010.316

So....OBN's SAP number is higher than the others!

[sudsnwicks]

When you recalculated using the corrected SAP, did you end up having put too little PKO? Or was it too much?

[Carrie]

OK, but for ease of explanation, next time you are talking about using NaOH SAP's can you use the NaOH SAP? My brain doesn't automatically divide by 1422.9803. When I see a KOH SAP, I can only assume you are talking about a KOH SAP.

[Angel91805]

Just put it in there like OBN gave it to me!

So....now that we've cleared up how to post the SAP values...any ideas if the soap is salvagable?

[Angel91805]

Thank you, Suds! You asked the question that made me think!

I manually recalcualted the lye, using the number provided by OBN...and I did...in fact use TOO little! (Makes me wonder why it was zappy for two days then!)

Where I should have used 8.43oz of lye, I used 8.02, and where I should have used 5.72, I used only 5.44.

Now....can I fix it? HP/rebatch it and add the remaining lye w/ a bit o' water??

[sudsnwicks]

The 8.43 oz of lye you should have used, what percent was the superfat? At 8.02 oz actual, what percent did you end up superfatting?

[Angel91805]

Wow...this is all making my head spin.

The SoapCalc sheet I have printed out, that I actually used, has the superfat at 5%, the water to % of oils at 38 and the water:lye ratio at 2.65:1. I flat can not figure out, this late at night, how to figure out what the real superfat is since I used the wrong amount of lye.

[sudsnwicks]

Try using the calculator here:

http://www.rainbowmeadow.com/infocenter/calc_soap/rainbow_soapcalc.php

Type in your oil amounts and it will give you the lye amounts for 0% to 10% superfat. I know you meant to superfat at 5%, but if you see your 8.02 oz of lye on the chart it means it will still be okay. It just means you will have to wait longer for it to firm up.