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Soapmaking in cold weather..


Candybee

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I was making salt bars for the past couple days. So yesterday I have my butters and oils all mixed and at room temp. They had been sitting for a while cause I was waiting for the lye to cool down. So when I was ready to blend I added in some cold coconut milk and blended it together. I took a short bathroom break before adding the lye solution.

 

So I come back a minute later and the oils have solidified and look like crisco shortening. I freaked thinking was there lye in there? I know I didn't add it yet. Then it hit me, the oils were 80% coconut with shea and the cold milk and cool room temp just cooled it down enough to start solidifying.

 

So I toss the bowl into the micro for about 1 minute and its back to liquid again.

 

Never happened to me before. But then this is the first year I have been making salt bars year round. So i'd never worked with a high coconut content before in the cooler weather. Live and learn!!

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I think those may be the last batches of salt bars I make for the season.

 

I don't have trouble with any of my other soaps in the winter. But I do have trouble with the hard oils like PKO and Cocoa Butter. I end up having to pretty much chisel off pieces to soap with! LOL

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I typically soap at RT, in my basement. I masterbatch my oils and lye. In the summer, my oils are a little on the slushy side, and in the winter they are a little softer than 76° coconut oil is in the summer. So slightly more solid than slushy, but not by much. 

In the winter I just put my weighed out oils in my microwave and zap them for about 45 seconds and it's perfectly fine and behaves the same as it does in the summer months. 

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The presto pot is great for heating the hard, brittle oils for soaping. I soap with hot lye to melt the oils, but sometimes the oils in my room are just too darned cold and need a little boost. The presto fits the end of the block of Cb, so i just melt what i need and go from there. Can pour off extra into silicone molds when i need smaller amounts easily.

I also keep the heat belt handy for pails. The 6 gallon buckets stay slushy or totally melted as-needed with no effort. And a heating pad to set soap molds on to ensure they are snug as a bug when things get reeeeaaallllyyy cold in my shop.

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Those are some good ideas. I also found I can keep the solid oils like PKO and CO in their 7 lb jugs I buy them in and just heat them in a pan over the stove for a few minutes. The jugs make excellent pouring containers and I can master batch my oils better that way. Usually, I melt the oils and transfer/pour them from the jug into a pail. But I am thinking I like the jugs better in the winter since I started masterbatching this year.

Edited by Candybee
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