As a hobby, I’ve been making Castille soap (Olive Oil based soap) for the past few years.
I still recall the very first batch I made, and the awful stench that permeated everything because I used lard as the base for the soap. It smelled like burning pig flesh, and the resulting soap smelled like warm pork when I’d wash my hands with it.
Trial and error!
Since then, I’ve found a better recipe and process for the soap making.
Soap Recipe
FATS
6 oz. Olive Oil
6 oz. Coconut Oil
9.5 oz. Vegetable Shortening (Crisco)
ALKALINE
3 oz. Lye
8 oz. Water
SCENT
1 oz. Essential Oil, Peppermint
Tools Needed to Make The Soap
Rubber Gloves
Long Sleeved Shirt
Safety Goggles
Big Jug of Vinegar
Cooking Weight Scale (postage meter scales work great)
Saucepan
Wooden or Plastic Stirring Spoons
Crock Pot
Large Glass Measuring Cup
Hand Held Blender
Wax Paper
Bread Pan
Making the SoapI can’t stress enough- lye is dangerous. It is caustic and can cause chemical burns to your skin. Handle with care. Use the protective eye goggles, long sleeves, and rubber gloves to protect your skin. Vinegar neutralizes lye. So keep it close at hand during your soap making.
On with making a batch of soap.
The first thing you will do is measure out the FATS, and add them to a sauce pan. Gently heat them to liquid and carefully pour into your crock pot.
Next, you will add the 8 ounces of water to your large measuring cup. Then you will measure the 3 ounces of lye, which you will slowly stir into the water. Make sure a window is open as you do this. The fumes are dangerous.
Important too, you must not add the water to the lye. Only the lye to the water. There is a chemical reaction that happens and you must be careful.
Once you have stirred the lye into the water and it has dissolved, slowly pour the lye/water into the crock pot.
Now it’s time to take your hand held blender and blend the mixture until it’s consistency is like pudding. (Takes me about seven minutes of blending.)
Then put the top on the crock pot and wait for an hour as it cooks.
While it’s cooking, take the time to wash all of your tools. It’s best if you put them in the dishwasher and add some vinegar to the load.
After the hour of cooking is up, comes the fun part. You will add the ounce of scent to your soap, stir it into the mix and scoop it into a bread loaf pan that is lined with wax paper.
Once the soap has cooled in the loaf pan, you can slip it out and cut it into bars with a knife.
that is very interesting, i always wondered about the process, thank you Mr. Cram
How long does the mixture take to cool? Thanks for the tutorial!!
You are welcome!
I like to let it cool overnight, though it probably is cool all the way through in around 4 hours. It cools from the outside in, so while the outside may appear solid, I have cut into a batch too soon, and discovered that the middle of the "loaf" is still not solidified.