Help with Palm Oil

[jonsie]

I bought a 4 kg pail of palm oil, and I don't know if I will ever do this again! I don't make huge batches of soap (yet) so I'm only needing maybe 1/2 pound at a time.

If I've read the right stuff about palm oil, it needs to be melted and stirred to incorporate the stearic back into the oil. If this is true, how can I tell when it is melted enough? About what temperature should I melt it to? What might be too hot for palm oil?

I buy my palm oil at the same place I buy my palm kernel oil, and the PKO is maybe 10% more expensive. So except for the price, does palm oil offer any benefits to CP that PKO doesn't? I guess I'm considering dropping palm oil if PKO can do the same thing, only better.

[lsg]

Here is a site that describes both:

http://www.americanpalmoil.com/foodproducts.html

I would check the qualities of both on SoapCalc.

I use palm kernel oil because it comes in shreds so it is easy to use. If I want palm oil in a recipe, I use the new Crisco and run it through SoapCalc.

[chuck_35550]

I have a presto pot with a spout. It completely melts in a matter of minutes and then I stir it with a spoon before use. HTH

Steve

[jonsie]

Thank you lsg and Steve. I appreciate the link, and I wish I had a reliable source for Crisco with palm, but it isn't easy to find here in Perth. You'll laugh, but one of the few stores I can by Crisco shortening over here is a Macy's-type of department store! And it's wildly expensive, of course. It sits on a shelf along with Jif peanut butter, Pop-Tarts, and other exotic, highly processed American goods :rolleyes2

Steve, I really like your idea of the kettle for palm oil. Unfortunately, my space is limited and I'm not quite ready to make a spot for it. But who knows, the time may come to do so.

How should the palm oil look when the stearic is completely mixed in? Is it still cloudy and grainy? Or should I warm it up until it is clear? At what temperature do you usually warm your palm oil up to?

Thanks in advance,

Susan

[lsg]

The only source I found on melting the whole pail said to set it in direct sunlight or to set it in hot water to melt. If your palm oil is food grade, you can use it in cooking.

http://www.camdengrey.com/essential-oils/palm-bulk.html

[deena]

Susan, be it right or wrong I have been making hot process soap in my slow cooker. I just put all of my oils in the pot until melted, I do not even test the temperature. As I have been using several blends of oils in my soaps I do put the solid oils in first, when they are well on the way to being melted add the liquid ones. Might have been lucky but it is working for me, no failures yet, cross fingers. So it is difficult for me to say what it looks like, I just keep stirring.

[jonsie]

Thanks lsg and deena!

I had to talk on the phone with my soap supplier about another issue, so I went ahead and asked them all of my palm oil questions. Very interesting, imo...

If the palm oil is in semi-solid state, and you can pass a spoon through it and give it a good stir, then that should be good enough to take care of any stearic separation. Ok to give it a few bursts in the microwave to thin it out, but no need to completely liquefy the palm oil or take it to any kind of elevated temperature (like 100 F) to get it ideal.

I also asked about the benefits of palm oil over palm kernel oil, and she said it's mainly, 1) price, and 2) since palm oil is softer, it reaches trace later than pko, which is nice when you want a slow trace. Otherwise she said pko generally has much better soap properties (smoother, silkier, whiter) but of course it's all a matter of preference.

One last interesting thing we talked about was coconut oil. Apparently CO is more susceptible to stearic separation than palm oil because CO has a lower melt point. I never knew that! All my time working with CO in my soy candles, I always assumed I could just scrape off what I had in the pail and not worry about separation. Oh well...

Thanks again for the input, everyone, and putting up with my odd questions.

Susan

[deena]

Thank you Susan for the information, interesting indeed