Why discount water?

[jaybyrd]

Dumb question here: What exactly are we making happen - or avoiding - when we discount water? I do understand that if you don't have enough, you risk having unreacted lye, but once the lye is disposed of, what sort of effect does the water content seem to have on your soap in terms of the appearance & feel?

j

[Jcandleattic]

Dumb question here: What exactly are we making happen - or avoiding - when we discount water? I do understand that if you don't have enough, you risk having unreacted lye, but once the lye is disposed of, what sort of effect does the water content seem to have on your soap in terms of the appearance & feel?

j

After the soaps have saponified, a water discount will speed cure time, it will also speed time in the mold, and will help with less shrinkage.

[RobinInOR]

And that means harder bars, faster, and harder bars last longer.

[Carriegsxr6]

Each soap recipe needs an exact amount of Lye in order for it to turn into soap. The suggested water amount is used to dissolve your lye in, and to help incorporate the lye evenly into the oils. When your soap is fully cured, the lye water fully evaporates and is no longer and active ingredient.

People usually discount water so it will speed up cure time, and allows your batch to set up quicker so you can cut it easier and use it sooner. I usually do a 30% lye solution (when using the soap calc), I believe the soap calc defaults to a 26% lye solution, but you can change it. This percentage is telling you how strong your lye water is, 26% lye to 74% water. The less water you use, the higher the lye percentage goes. But your actual lye amount never increases, only the water decreases.

If going by the MMS lye calculator, I usually use the middle range of water they suggest.

Some people have done a 33% solution or use even less water, but with my recipe, it traces too fast and doesn’t give me enough play time to mix colors and FOs.

[heirloomoriginals]

Great description, Carrie! Also, discounting is great for soaps that are softer by nature (like castile), especially if there is no scent or color going in because you don't need the extra play time, if it happens to trace too fast.

Steph

[jaybyrd]

Thanks so much, folks! That's just the kind of info I was hoping for.

Cheers,

j

[beloved]

I want to add my thank you too. I could understand perfectly.

[Sara]

Discounter here as well. I don't know if it was just me, but there was a little bit of trial and error when I started discounting because I'd end up with less raw soap to work with. It took me a bit to figure out how to divvy it up between my molds with the batch-size I was working with.

[topofmurrayhill]

Is there any longer term effect from discounting water?

In other words, is it the same product in the end apart from how fast it cures or does it end up being a little different in some way?

In other other words, if I didn't happen to care how fast the soap is ready to use and didn't need to get faster trace, would there be any other benefit to an H2O discount?

[Carriegsxr6]

Is there any longer term effect from discounting water?

In other words, is it the same product in the end apart from how fast it cures or does it end up being a little different in some way?

In other other words, if I didn't happen to care how fast the soap is ready to use and didn't need to get faster trace, would there be any other benefit to an H2O discount?

Nope no difference in the final product what so ever, since all the water (no matter how much you use) evaporates in the end anyways.

[Gypsyjen]

Is there any longer term effect from discounting water?

In other words, is it the same product in the end apart from how fast it cures or does it end up being a little different in some way?

In other other words, if I didn't happen to care how fast the soap is ready to use and didn't need to get faster trace, would there be any other benefit to an H2O discount?

Discounting water makes less shrinkage over time. If you are packaging your soaps with bands around them like a lot of people do, and your soaps shrink too much they can eventually fall out of the bands.

[ladysj]

WOW Thank you Carrie for such great details. I now fully understand the the water discount thingy If was very informative and easy for us laymans to understand. Thank you again.

[eugenia]

Is there any longer term effect from discounting water?

In other words, is it the same product in the end apart from how fast it cures or does it end up being a little different in some way?

In other other words, if I didn't happen to care how fast the soap is ready to use and didn't need to get faster trace, would there be any other benefit to an H2O discount?

Top, it took me a long time to discount water. I used to do logs with full water and found that typically, the soap formed a "valley" at the top, with the middle being lower than the edges.

Discounting water gave me a flatter surface with no warping. I wanted my bars to be rectangular.