My Soap Making Adventure

Rules:
1. Do not ask to buy any of this soap.
2. Do not ask to receive any of this soap for free.
3. Do not review this soap on B&B if you happen to have any. I will not be reviewing this soap either so please do not ask for a review.
4. Do not post anything which may cause this thread to be deleted or closed. This is my soap making adventure and is purely for kicks. Please let me enjoy my new hobby. If you have any questionable posts or questions please look at rules 1-3 first and if you are not sure if it it's appropriate please don't post it. The rules on B&B are here for the general welfare of all members and vendors.



My soap making hobby came about like all my other hobbies.... I jump head first into the deep end and learn to swim. My first beer brewing setup was 5 gallon minimums with a 5 tap kegorator. My first reloader was a Dillon 650 with case feeder. My first shave soap will be:

Organic Grass Fed Beef Tallow, Stearic Acid, Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Avocado Oil, Mango Butter, Kokum Butter, Castor Oil, Lanolin

First I melt the stearic on high heat as it has the highest melting point.


Then I add the Tallow. This is some seriously beautiful stuff, I'm glad I went ahead and bought the best ingredients I could find. The cost is not a lot when you consider the price per ounce and I'm not interested in saving a few dollars on a puck of shave soap, as they say soap is cheap.



Next it's time to add all the other butters and oils and let them melt on high in the crock pot.



While those are melting get your lye solution ready. I am using 60% KOH 40% NaOH for this first recipe.

When you pour your lye solution into the crock pot it will begin saponification immediately, you must work quickly!



Less than 15 seconds later you are here.
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30 minutes later you are here.

Thanks for the pix. Will be watching this.

My first soap had a very similar list of ingredients. Using 60/40 lye mix worked very well.

Stir every 5 minutes and cook for 90 minutes minimum. After 90 minutes you can do a zap test to test for remaining lye. Professional soapers sometimes use pH meters but other soap makers like MdC do the zap test along the way. I have a high end pH meter but won't be using it here as I am doing a full cook and cure afterwards.



I'm not sure what the rules are concerning posting recipes that are modified so I will just post a sample recipe I made a few weeks ago. The process is the same, the only thing you change is the percentages of each component until you find the best soap for your particular face.

Wonderful tutorial.

This is really cool... what is a Zap test?

1 hour later the soap looks to be done, I will continue to cook for a little while but we are getting close.



I bought a variety of molds but this batch is only 1 pound so I am using my smallest ones. They fit perfectly into my small mason jars.

dexutter said:

This is really cool... what is a Zap test?

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Chemical burn essentially . Just stick you tongue on the soap and if it stings then the lye needs to be neutralized since your Ph will be too high.

Thanks for posting this. A full review might be out of the question but would posting lather pics work?

It passed the zap test so into the molds it goes. Total cook time 79 minutes. Now they will sit in the molds for 18-24 hours to settle and harden.



Total prep, cook and cleanup time was around 110 minutes. I am going to do another batch tomorrow, that one will be veggie soap. Both batches will be scent free. I want to dial in the recipe before I start adding scents. That was fun! What a great hobby!

How long will you cure it for?

dabrock said:

How long will you cure it for?

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Most people suggest a 1-2 week cure for hot process soaps but I will be shaving with one puck probably tomorrow evening, I tend to be impatient

I think the cure has more to do with letting the soap harden rather than letting it finish saponification in the case of hot process. Naturally cold process soaps must cure for months in order to let saponification finish. I intend to do a few cold process soaps as well, I really want to try out every type of soaping that I can.

For those other new shavers like me who are wondering what saponification is here is an explanation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponification

I think I found a new hobby...

Congrats on your batch of shaving soap, it looks great. I share in your passion of creating ones own soap and have recently done a couple of test batches of shaving soap. Just this morning I received some more ingredients I ordered to make a few more test batches. FWIW, my tallow soaps using KOH and NaOH were the best lathering and the slickest. Please keep us posted, I am interested to hear the results of your testing.

Just from buying tons of soaps I knew that hot process soaps had bubbles in them and cold process soaps were more solid and had no air bubbles due to being put into molds when they were liquid but I am disappointed in how my hot process soaps came out. I definitely over cooked it; there are lots of air pockets and uneven surfaces. I think the advice of cooking for 2 hours is dead wrong, my soap was good to go after 40-50 minutes. Hot process is great but cooking for 2 hours is excessive. Sure it speeds up the process a little but I don't think the aesthetics are worth it, I want to try a 40 minute cook next time and compare the two.

All right, let's see how much water weight this test puck loses over the next 2 weeks.

rockclimber said:

Just from buying tons of soaps I knew that hot process soaps had bubbles in them and cold process soaps were more solid and had no air bubbles due to being put into molds when they were liquid but I am disappointed in how my hot process soaps came out. I definitely over cooked it; there are lots of air pockets and uneven surfaces. I think the advice of cooking for 2 hours is dead wrong, my soap was good to go after 40-50 minutes. Hot process is great but cooking for 2 hours is excessive. Sure it speeds up the process a little but I don't think the aesthetics are worth it, I want to try a 40 minute cook next time and compare the two.
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I think you will find it will not zap after 30 minutes or so. I usually cook less than an hour, but I mold in pvc and then slice so I can tap it and get most of the air bubbles worked to the surface.

I bet it will lather great, the air bubbles are minimal.

Subscribed to this one. Great thread, I love these soap making threads with lots of pics. It's just cool to see how soap is made.

As far as the appearance and air bubbles go it's something I wouldn't worry about. All of my soaps get pressed into stainless steel containers so any air bubbles in the original form don't really matter at all.