Turkey Roaster for melting M&P

[Candybee]

My lovely Life of the Party Soap Kettle from Michaels finally bit the dust last week! Right when I was getting ready for my craft show and had about 35 lbs more of soap to make!

So out of desperation I grabbed my GE Turkey Roaster to melt the base in. (I got it couple of years ago to melt my soy wax in when I was making soy candles but no longer use soy.)

I get my bases in 25 lb blocks so I just cut up the base a bit and tossed the whole 25 lbs in the roaster. Took 1 1/2 hrs to melt but when it was ready I got my soaps done in less than half the time it used to take me.

What a lucky find! Now I know I have a melter big enough for my blocks of base. Haven't tried chucking the whole block in uncut but want to give that a try one day to see how long an uncut block will take to melt.

Anyhoo-- there was someone a while back asking what they could use as a melter for large blocks of M&P. Now you know.

Its a GE Roaster Oven with a temperature setting I got at Walmart for around $25 or $30. It has one of those inner pans as a liner so the meat does not sit directly on the heating element. Works perfect for melting M&P base and doesn't take up a lot of counter space.

In addition you can lower the heat temp to low to keep the base warm for hours without damaging it. BTW-- I also add my butter and oils in with the base and melt it all together.

Edited November 14, 2010 by Candybee

[mparadise]

Sweet! Thanks for the heads up. I buy M&P blocks too and usually use the entire block at one time. I will have to dig out my turkey roaster that is collecting dust and give it a shot!

[lovemylabs]

We just picked up the same thing last week. We're going to get another one for this very thing. We too get our mp in 25 pound blocks. When we purchased roasters in the past for wax, we were able to get at least two 10-lb slabs in there. So I'm counting on our being able to put the whole 25 pound block of mp in there at once...just cut it up just a bit to fit inside. We have a wholesale client that usually orders around 100 bars at a time...this will save an enormous amount of time! Thanks Candybee:yay:

[Candybee]

It took the 25lbs easy. I had room for another 25 lb block but didn't need that much soap.

Because mine has that inner pan I had to use a higher temp setting to melt the base. I set it at around 225-250 degrees. You need to check the temp of your base with a thermometer to make sure it doesn't overheat or 'cook'.

Then once the base is melted I lower the temp setting to keep the melted base warm. I set the warming temp to about 175 to 200 degrees. This will keep my base at roughly 175 degrees while it is keeping 'warm'. Thats the same temp my soap melter would leave the base in the 'warm' mode.

HTH

[lovemylabs]

That is awesome Candybee. What a time saver!!! Sounds like we picked up the same roaster. Thanks for the melting tips as well.