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Rebatch or toss the lye water separation


MissMary

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So, I started with a totally simple recipe - lard, castor and a touch of stearic to harden it a tiny bit. I went to unmold and splash. I assume, looking at the underside, and the pockets it's separation of lye water from the soap.

My question is, should I rebatch it as it, add nothing else, or toss it because I don't have the slightest idea how much splashed out or what was absorbed?

I think my problem was undermixing now - no stick here, just hand.

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If you are not averse to rebatching (I am) I'd say go ahead and do it with whatever liquid you can salvage. It might be a bit milder and softer than you planned but still probably very nice.

I typically aim for a 5-6% SF but have had gorgeous 10% SF soaps as well so there is certainly wiggle room.

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You can try to rebatch it if you don't want to waste your ingredients. It doesn't sound like a whole lot splashed out, so you should be okay there. Lard does take a long time, especially when mixing by hand. But you don't have to stand there the whole time. You can stir for a while, walk away for a while, then come back and stir some more.

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Thanks for the answers very much. I'm attempting a rebatch, my first actually. Though I think it may be a lost cause, when I finished pulling off the paper, I'd estimate I lost half the water/lye solution and my dingbutt didn't put gloves on the second time. It was quite a lot, probably about 1/8-1/4" thick and all settled on the bottom.

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That much liquid, I *personally* would just toss the batch. Just my opinion though.

BTW....a mostly lard recipe makes for a very hard bar, no need to add steric at ALL. I'm not sure how much lard you are using, but since lard and castor were your only oils.....I'm assuming you've got at least 80-90% lard there. No steric needed. (says one who has never used steric in her soaps at all)

Babbling right along.....

Donna

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Thanks! Yep, it's 89% lard. The first attempt at the lard bar came out kinda mushy (though reading through here again and with the answers given, I think I've got the problem nailed), but I dropped the stearic down for a second batch last night to only 1% and castor 5%.

Also helps I just got a new infrared laser thermometer - what my candy thermometer reads was about 10 degrees off and it looks like I was soaping with lye at around 120 degrees, while the oils were only around 90.

Fixed that on the second batch last night, and holy cow.... I have TONS of time to stir....

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