New 18oz. Lye and soap recipes

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Last spring I made soap for the first time and it turned out great. Since that time, the Red Devil cans have been changed from 12oz. to 18 oz. My soap recipes call for 12 oz. Can I rewrite my recipes as to be using all 18 oz. or will my soap have problems?

-- Sandy Ray (SPARKY526@msn.com), December 28, 2001

Answers

Rewrite the receipe or measure out the right amount. I always take great precautions on measuring my lye, water, and oils. I have a postage scale. I discount at 7 percent and it will be different depending on the oils. I use mostly olive then coconut, palm and last cocoa butter. I make a six pound (oils) batch and use 13.5 lye. The lye can change by a point. 13.5 (7 percent discount) 13.7 is (6percent discount). Becareful. If you add 6 ounces of lye you would burn your face off. Could call it the face lift! Just kidding.

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), December 28, 2001.

There is a site that has a lye calculator www.thesage.com and you can adjust the recipe for the amount of lye you want to use.

-- shari (smillers@snowcrest.net), December 28, 2001.

I weigh everything out also. Even the 12 oz of lye from the old cans..just weigh it out to be on the safe side. I use a scale that is a kitchen scale from Pampered Chef (a home party plan deal) that was not too expensive, but quite acurate and had a nice big tray on top. Used a little diet scale for years..what an improvement. I would just use the 12 oz. and save the rest of the can for the next batch. I don't mess with the recipes at all (except maybe subbing different fats or oils) Good luck!

-- Jenny (auntjenny6@aol.com), December 28, 2001.

I will reiterate what everyone already told you, to be careful to weigh your ingredients. Just today I made a batch of soap, and at the last minute I checked my measurments on www.thesage.com, and I was off. I was able to adjust the recipe, and my soap came out great. If you don't measure, preferably with a good quality scale, you may end up lye heavy, or light, which makes for bad soap. Mary

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), December 28, 2001.

I dont weight anything for making soap,,just dump it in mix and wait,,soap isnt suppoosed to be ALL that difficult

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.coms), December 28, 2001.


I made my own recipe that I use all the time with my soap, maybe adding more of one oil or the other. This recipe takes 18 ounces of lye, if you want the recipe, feel free to email me! :-) I also figured out how to color the soap with a crayon and get a nice smooth result.

-- Cindy in Ok (cynthiacluck@yahoo.com), January 18, 2002.

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