Soap Cooking In A Modern Setting

Soap Cooking In A Modern Setting

Danger!
Cooking soap at home is dangerous.

Be very sure of what you're doing and use proper safety equipment.
Most soap recipes found today aren't cooked. However, cooking does offer some advantages.

Pro’s to cooking soap:

Cooking the soap solution greatly speeds up the chemical reaction needed to make soap. Instead of taking weeks to cure, it’s ready for use much sooner.
It's a relatively quick way to trace vegetable oils.

Cons to cooking soap:

I no longer cook soap as a hand held blender works just as fast.
This can be very dangerous. Before the process is complete, the soap can get up to 330 degrees F. From 220 degrees F. to 275 degrees F. it has a tendency to splutter or spatter soap out of the pot if it boils too vigorously. This is not something you want to do with children around.
There is a chance of fire. If you have a fire extinguisher handy and use a pot with high sides, you shouldn't have any trouble. Have a lid handy to smother any flames, and never leave cooking soap unattended. Be sure to wear adequate protection. This includes long gloves and protection for all exposed skin and face. A face shield would be a good idea. No one wants a drop or two of this stuff spattering on their face or arms and making a scar.
There are some things you can't put in your recipe if you are going to cook it.

How It’s Done...

For cooking, you must modify the recipe somewhat. Don't add any sugar or salt as this will make a mess. Lanolin will curdle your batch if it is heated above 120 degrees F. You should be able to add the other ingredients in the recipes found on these pages. However, the three basic ingredients, fat, lye and water make great soap all by themselves.

With your ingredients well mixed, place your soap mixture in an stainless steel or enameled pot. Turn the heat on moderately high until it gets to the boiling point, then turn it down so it maintains a slow but rolling boil - a low enough boil so it is not spattering all over the place. If it starts spattering out of the pot, pull it off the heat partially until it slows down. Then turn down the heat. Your goal is to keep it boiling, but not so vigorously that it becomes dangerous. Stir constantly and always be conscious of how it’s boiling and behaving. As it boils two things happen:

The chemical reaction necessary to make soap is greatly accelerated.
Some of the water in the soap is boiled off.

The soap cooks somewhat like candy in that it starts boiling at a temperature of about 220 degrees F and as it continues to boil the water off, the temperature rises. It is very important to know when to quit. As it slowly gets thicker, the instant the bubbles start appearing in the same place, giving you a hint that it is acting just a bit more rigid than before, pull it off the heat. In my experience this happens at a temperature of between 300 and 330 degrees F. It would be handy to keep a candy thermometer around as an aid in checking on it’s progress. If you let it go too long and the soap separates, add a little more water to bring it back into suspension.

300 - 310 degrees F for lard
320 - 330 degrees for vegetable oil

If you don't want to, it really isn't necessary to bring the soap up to these high temperatures. This is the way I do it however. To see if you've cooked it long enough, you can also dribble a bit of soap onto a plate then wait for it to cool. If it's setting up you have cooked it long enough.

With the pot off the heat, place it in cool water. If you don't, the soap is so hot it will continue to bubble for a few minutes with the pot off the stove! Also, if you tried to pour hot soap at these temperatures, it would melt a hole right through your plastic mold! Continue to stir it until it has cooled off - down to at least 120 degrees. As it cools you may wish to add a piece of crayon. As it melts it will color your soap. This is also a good time to add fragrance oils (FO's). After it has cooled, it should have the consistency of thick pudding. Pour, or scoop the soap into your soap tray or mold, then smooth it out the best you can with a spatula. As it is very sticky, to get it nice and smooth on top, place a layer of plastic wrap on it and continue to smooth it out. I like to place something flat on top of it and press down lightly. This makes it as flat on top as it is on the bottom. A couple of hours later as the soap has continued to cool and harden, you can remove this top layer of plastic wrap. Smooth any imperfections out with your finger that were created by wrinkles in the plastic wrap.

Soap made from Animal Fat: After a couple of hours, section it into bar sized squares with a table knife. Depending on how firm it is, on the second day, you can remove it from the tray and break it into bar sized pieces using the knife marks you put into it. After two more days it should be mostly cured. After it has dried it's ready for storage. After curing, give it a litmus paper test. It should be a PH of 9 or less. Or you can give it the taste test.

Soap made from Vegetable Oil: After you get it in the soap tray, treat it in the same way as you would for soap made from animal fat using a non-cook recipe. It will take longer to cure but still makes fine soap.

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Al Durtschi, E-mail: mark@waltonfeed.com

Home Page: http://waltonfeed.com/

This information may be used by you freely for non-commercial use with my name and E-mail address attached.

Revised: 10 Jul 00