First and last try at hot process soap

Recently on The Home Maker's Forum we had a challenge to make hot process soap which I have thought about making for quite a while but have put it off in case the soap ended up being really thick and lumpy like it can do when rebatching soap. However, I finally bit the bullet and gave it a go last week but decided that once was enough for me and that I would stick to cold process soap in the future :-)

Personally I can't see the benefits of choosing hot process over cold process apart from the fact that you don't have to wait as long for the HP to cure. I am happy to wait for mine though. I found the HP process time consuming as I had read a number of warnings about not leaving the crockpot as there could be a volcano. Yikes! However, no volcano appeared as I sat there drumming my fingers and waiting till the soap went through the various stages. 

There are some perfectly good videos out there on how to make HP soap that you can look at if you really want to try this method. I find that if I read too many instructions or watch too many YouTube videos I get confused as there are so many different ways that soapmakers make their soap so I just stuck to Valerie Mosher's YouTube video Low Temperature Hot Process Soap as well as the instructions in Jan Berry's Simple and Natural Soapmaking. 

I will note here how I made this soap just for future reference in case I ever forget how time consuming it was. LOL! The recipe I used was based on Jan Berry's 'Sunny Corn Silk and Sunflower Soap' in her new book. Here are the ingredients I used:

170g Coconut Oil

113g Lard

397g Olive Oil

113g Sunflower Oil

109g Lye

283g Water

30g   Mandarin & Myrrh fragrance oil

1t      Annato red 

2T    Greek yoghurt

In Jan's book she recommends changing the amount of water given in nearly all of her recipes to 283g when using the HP method which I did.  The original recipe used 248g water. 

This is the process I used:

I added the lye to the water and waited till the temperature went down to 55C and heated up the oils to the same temperature. I think I turned the crockpot to low at this stage as I didn't want to put hot oils in a cold crockpot as I had cracked one doing that before. Then I added the lye mixture to the oils and tried to bring it to a thick trace as Valerie had in her video.

I had read that it would take longer than usual due to the extra water but it took so long that my stick blender was getting much too hot so I just took it to a medium trace. Then I carefully poured it into the crock pot and ...

...as recommended by Valerie I covered it with cling wrap which sat under the lid. I haven't used it for so long I had to try and find the box first. LOL! I was supposed to see some action after 20 minutes but nothing happened until at least 30 minutes and then there was some bubbling around the sides. Whohoo...action at last!

It is a bit hard to see through the cling wrap but then things really started moving...

... and after 50 minutes (Ho Hum) I saw the mixture rolling in on itself and then I had to watch for it to look like vaseline...

...was that vaseline? Not sure but a mashed potato appearance was also mentioned. I just pressed on regardless.

When I thought it was at the translucent stage and was ready I turned off the heat and then started stirring and stirring and stirring as Valerie does an awful lot of stirring in her instructions...

...before taking the bowl out of the base of the crock pot and adding 2T Greek Yoghurt followed once again by a lot more stirring. I think the yoghurt helps to keep the mixture more fluid as I know when I was rebatching soap in the crock pot it became extremely dried out and lumpy which made it hard to put into the moulds. Then I covered it again and left it for ten minutes. I was supposed to then take the 'zap test' which I didn't for obvious reasons and just added the heated fragrance oil. Apparently the additives are all supposed to be heated.

Here comes the really messy part as this batter is much harder to work with than what you have with the cold process method. I put some of the batter into a jug and added 1t Annato Red colouring. This is what is used to colour cheese.

Then I topped that with the plain batter and tried to smooth it out...unsuccessfully I might add. So what do you do when you have a fairly rough top...

...you cover it with calendula petals of course! Ha ha! I told you it was messy.

I then left it overnight as the soap was quite soft and I didn't want to disturb it. The next day it was dry enough to take out of the mould and cut. The plain top section is already darkening as there was 2.3% vanillin in the fragrance oil and I wonder if that process is speeded up by the hot process method. 

Valerie Mosher from Shalebrook Handcrafted Soap is quite an expert with hot process soap and makes lovely swirls etc. with hers as she is able to keep her batter quite liquid so has plenty of time to work with the colours. I just wanted to make a fairly plain batch for the first time as I could always experiment more later on but honestly, I don't think I will as it is much quicker to use the cold process method as far as I am concerned. I am not an expert soapmaker and that is just my opinion but I daresay there are plenty of readers out there who like the HP soap. 

So that is the first challenge of the year out of the way. I know there are a few readers who said they wanted to try making soap this year. Have you given it a try as yet? It is not that hard and the cold process method is quite easy. You don't have to add any colours or fragrances if you want to just make a plain soap and it is easier if you leave them out when starting off anyway. 

  Go on! I can't wait to see what you come up with.