# Fail to Harden



## bnmorgan (Aug 2, 2013)

40oz Olive
44oz Grapeseed
20oz Water
10.75oz NaOH
Taken to soft trace then added:

8oz Rosemary slurry (6oz water 2oz dried rosemary, blended to death)

continued to stir till traced good. 

First noticed a problem that the initial soft trace took over an hour (power drill and paint stirrer thing, has worked well for me in the past) 

Took another hour to get a good trace after rosemary. 
48hr in mold and its still soft. Not trace soft, but certainly not hard enough to demold or cut or anything else. 

Suggestion what to do from here?


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## Dahc (Feb 14, 2006)

We had this happen with our first canola oil batch. We left it in the mold for several days. It did eventually harden up. Soft oils seem to do that. It took 2 hrs for us to get trace but we were hand stiring too.  It looks like your recipe is fine though. Maybe just leave it for a few more days.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Grapeseed Oil is a wonderful oil for lotions & creams, but in bar soaps it is so high in the "-oleic" fatty acids (oleic, linoleic, linolenic) that it needs to be used no more than 20% of the total recipe else it will take forever to finally harden up, even to unmold.

If you use this same combination of oils and additional rosemary slurry, I'd reduce the water amount used with the lye from 20 oz to 15 oz. This reduction of water will help speed the trace and unmolding time.

If you need your molds before this soap hardens on its own, put them in the freezer for a few hours.


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## bnmorgan (Aug 2, 2013)

If i put it in the freezer, will it liquify again once the temp comes back up? The mold for this one is just a big dish tub so i'm in no hurry except to get to a new batch experiment.

Also, what temp does it need to be kept at. I thought I understood that it needed to be kept higher than normal room temp, so I have been keeping it in a room that stays ~90Â°F Is this right?


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

If you don't need your mold, then let it sit. It could be a few months before it will be hard enough to unmold, and this would be because the water is evaporating out of it.

Don't be surprised when this soap doesn't last long in use.

The chemical reaction of the acids & base during saponification is exothermic ... meaning it produces heat ... until the reaction is complete. This could take from an hour (if hot processing) to a couple days (if mold is placed in fridge or freezer). At that time, normal room temp is fine.


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## bnmorgan (Aug 2, 2013)

Ahh, ok. Thank you. How about during curing? warm/dry? cool/dry? mississippi summer? what is best and quickest?


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

The purpose of 'curing' is to allow the excess moisture to evaporate from the soap. So a place that is dry is the best. An room with AC works well


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## bnmorgan (Aug 2, 2013)

So how can I reprocess this batch to harden it? Say, making a batch of harder setting soap (lard? coconut?) and then how do I blend it into a new batch to harden?


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Been thinking on this for a few days ... 

Do you have a large electric roaster? Or a couple of very large pots so you could create a double boiler?? If so ...

I think what I would try is shred about 3 lb of the soap, set aside.

Make another soap, say

33.6 oz Lard
14.4 oz Coconut
14.4 oz water
6.8 oz lye

Weigh and melt oils in roaster or double boiler. Add lye solution and shredded soap. Hot process it. There are plenty of videos & pictorials on the web about how to Hot Process. Here is mine.


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## bnmorgan (Aug 2, 2013)

Cool. Thank you. Although shredding won't be needed......it's still mostly liquid bordering on a jelly consistency.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Give it a nice stir before weighing it out.


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