| Hello fellow soapers! My name is Kathy and I have volunteered to be a guest writer for my method of Hot Process using a Crock Pot.
Equipment Needed: Formula: 16.5 oz Distilled Water (MMS calculator calls for 15 – 22 fluid ounces) After the cook: I put all of my safety gear on first then measure out my distilled water and lye solution. Stir until clear. Sit outside with the cover on it. When I make Hot Process, I always use the full amount of liquid called for on the MMS calculator. In this case, I made the decision to use 5.5 oz after the cook. You take a chance when you use less liquid because you’re cooking your soap – so it needs all of the liquid to prevent it from burning or drying out. Think of cooking a pot roast in a crock pot – you need liquid to keep it moist! I then measure out my hard oils and melt them in a stainless steel pot. Now you’re probably wondering why I don’t use the crock pot to melt my hard oils! Well, let me tell you…I did this one time and it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to melt the hard oils. THEN I had to wait for the crock pot to cool down before proceeding with my solution. Never again! Just use a stainless steel pot for melting the hard oils. Once my oils are melted, I pour them into the Crock Pot and add the rest of my measured out liquid oils. Give it a good stir. Take your lye solution and pour it slowly into the Crock Pot and stir with a hole spoon. I then use my Stick Blender to bring it to trace. I like a medium to heavy trace for this process. Start time for cooking the soap is 1:50 PM. I’m sorry that I do not have pictures to show you pouring my solution into my oils…only have 2 hands! For Crock Pot Hot Process, I cook the soap on LOW. If you use the higher setting, it’s going to dry out or worse, burn your soap. OK, you’re probably wondering – should I stir or leave it alone while it’s cooking! I leave it alone – I do NOT stir my soap unless it’s spitting/spilling over the sides of the Crock Pot. If your soap does start spitting/spilling over the sides of your Crock Pot – first check the temp setting you put it on. If you used HIGH, it’s going to cook too quickly and it will spit/spill over the sides of the Crock Pot. Keep it on LOW and you should be fine. Also, DO NOT REMOVE the lid 😉 See how it looks like it’s drying out around the edges of the Crock Pot? This is normal – leave it alone! Now it looks like it’s going to start spitting/spilling over the sides of the Crock Pot. Just watch it, don’t remove the lid unless it does start spilling over the sides of the Crock Pot. You can see in the background that my Milk/Water and FO is ready. (The Honey/Water is ready also, just not in the picture) You can see how the soap on the edges are kind of “folding over” onto itself. This is a really good sign that my soap is almost done!! At 4:50 PM (3 hours cook time) I removed the inner crock from the pot. Please make sure you use heavy-duty, flat pot holders or a towel folded over 4 times. You don’t want to burn your counter. That inner pot is HOT, so use caution while working with it. I use heavy duty pot holders to hold the sides of the inner pot while stirring it. You will also need a folded over towel for the very hot Crock Pot lid. The soap should look like Vaseline and mashed potatoes mixed together. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that! Once the soap in your Crock Pot has folded over onto itself – it’s done. I’ve had some recipes that only took 1 ½ hours, some 2 hours – it just depends on your recipe. This one took 3 hours total cook time. Once you remove the inner crock from the pot, stir it to help cool it down. At this stage, you don’t want it to cool down too much because then you’ll have a very hard time glopping it into your mold. Once it cooled down (use your own judgment – I stirred for 5 minutes here) I then added my water/honey, slushy water/powdered goatsmilk and my FO. Stir Stir Stir!!! I stirred for another 5 minutes. You need to make sure that these ingredients are stirred in very well – or you’re going to end up with pockets of milk, honey or FO – not a good thing!! Now it’s time to literally “glop” your soap into your mold! You will need a heat-resistant spatula to get it out of the Crock Pot. Do the best you can, I use the spatula to scrape the sides of the Crock Pot also. Waste not!! You can see that I spent too much time getting the soap into the mold. Some bars are very dry looking – so work quickly getting the soap into your mold! There’s nothing wrong with the dry looking bars, they’re just not aesthetically pleasing. Notes: I do not use thermometers for my Solution or my melted Oils. I have found with Hot Process – it just doesn’t matter! You’re going to be cooking the soap!! On one batch, I used liquid Goat Milk (from the grocery store) – holy cow! If you do use liquid Goat Milk – make sure you have very good ventilation. The smell of ammonia (which is normal for milk soaps) will overwhelm you. I was getting a horrible headache plus I was gagging the whole time. I only cooked it for 1 hour, then I went ahead and poured it into my mold. It was not done cooking! The next day, I had oil sitting on top of the soap. I threw it away. What I should have done at that point was cut it up, put it back into the Crock Pot, plug it in outside on the patio and let it cook another hour or so. Oh well, live and learn! I do While the soap is cooking, use the time to clean up your soap table, make notes on your handwritten recipe, read a book, dance – whatever! I use the cooking time to line my mold, get my additives ready, then I clean up my area and make any notes about the batch. Do not leave your Crock Pot unattended – not even for a minute! If you need to leave (bathroom break) get your spouse or teenager to watch it for you until you come back. If you don’t have anyone to watch your Crock Pot – turn it off until you come back. A few minutes is not going to hurt it. Better to be safe than sorry. You do not need to insulate Hot Process soap. I do use a piece of freezer paper over the mold, but that’s only to keep dust off of my soap. Also, it’s a good idea to use one of those heat-resistant cutting boards to place your mold of soap on – to protect your counter. I unmold and cut my soap 24 hours after I’ve glopped it into my mold. Hot Process soap is ready to use once the soap is cool – usually 8 hours later. But, to prolong the use of the soap, I let it sit for a week to 10 days – to dry it out a little more. I then shrink wrap my soaps, weigh each one and place my cigar band label on them – ready for sale! (and use!) I purchased a gallon (what was I thinking?!) of Sodium Lactate from MMS to use with my Hot Process soap batches, but haven’t tried it yet. You add it to your lye solution at .25 oz PPO. (I think you decrease your liquid by the amount of Sodium Lactate that you use) Supposedly, it keeps the batch smoother and easier to get into your mold! Instead of glopping the soap into the mold, you can actually pour it in your mold – supposedly. Like I said, I haven’t tried it!! It would be sooo nice if it’s true! You can use any CP recipe that you’ve made – just remember to keep your oils at or below 64 oz and liquid at 24 oz for a 6 Quart Crock Pot. And always use the full amount of liquid recommended on the MMS Calculator. Have fun 😉 |
 Here is my pot of melted oils and the light gold mica.  Medium to Heavy Trace.  17 minutes into the cook.  30 minutes into the cook.  55 minutes into the cook.  1 hour and 35 minutes into the cook.  2 hours and 25 minutes into the cook.  Close up view of edges "folding over."  Top view of edges "folding over."  3 hours into the cook.  Stirring in the additives.  My soap glopped into the mold.  Close up of my soap in the mold.  My empty crock pot. |
Kathy,
You make this look a lot easier than i thought hot process soap would be.
I am not sure what the advantages of hot process vs. cold process soap are though,
Could you elaborate?
great job! I too would like to know the advantages of HP vs CP when it comes to bar soap. I use HP when making liquid soap,but never tryed it with making bar soap.
Hi kathyjane and patti_56,
What’s so nice about Hot Process vs. Cold Process is that it’s ready to wrap, label and sell/use right away. With CP, you have to let your soap sit out for 6 – 8 weeks to finish curing ~ which takes up alot of counter space. You also have to turn your CP soaps every 3 days or so. With HP, you can use your soap as soon as it’s cool. I do let it sit (cut up) for at least a week, sometimes less, not to further cure them, but to let them dry out a little bit more. In my experience, HP has less shrinkage than CP. The pics above show a divider type mold, which I don’t use anymore for HP. I prefer a log mold. As you probably know, HP looks rougher on top than CP. When you use a log mold, you can trim or cut the tops off to make it look smoother. Or overfill your log mold and run a knife along the top before unmolding the soap. Another way would be to place a piece of freezer paper on top of the soap and smash it down slightly with the lid. But I actually like the rustic look!
Another thing I like about HP is that you don’t have to worry about seizing…we’ve all had FO’s that were touchy or downright seized a batch of CP soap – not fun! With HP – you add the touchy FO AFTER the cook! Plus, I have found that I use less FO with HP.
Colorants – it’s really easy to color the whole batch than it is to swirl HP. If you work REALLY fast, it can be done! MMS used to sell ice cream pails – lucky me bought a dozen of them when they had them for sale. I see they don’t have them anymore ;o( As soon as your HP soap is done cooking, stir it up, glop some into the ice cream pail, color and stir quickly, then glop it back into the crock pot (in 4-5 different locations on top) and stir it slightly. Make sure you get to the bottom of the crock pot or you’ll get white soap on top with colored swirls in the rest of your soap.
Clean-up – after I’ve got my soap into the mold, I can wash my dishes without worrying about whether I’m going to be burned with the raw soap from my soap bucket. I do have to worry about my lye pitcher, but the rest can be washed right away without worry – just make sure your crock pot is cool or it could crack.
Those are my reasons why I love HP! I do CP when I want 2-3 color swirls throughout my soap. I really need to experiment with Sodium Lactate – just to see if I can do a 3 color swirl with HP…!!!
HTH,
Kathy
Thank you kathy for sharing info on the difference between CP and HP! I can’t wait to try my first batch in HP.
Great post, with lots of great information. My question is….if I have a botched batch of CP soap (went into gel phase and hasn’t seem to come out of gel phase and it’s been in the mold 27 hours) is it this method (HP) that I use to “save” it? I have read back through the posts from Andee and about how to save a CP batch that has seized with the hot water. but I didn’t have the problem, so I am really not sure where to go with this. I mixes to trace, watched it start the gel phase and then 24 hours later it still looks like it is int he get phase. Thanks for any advise you can give me (or anyone can give me). Emily
Emily,
Being translucent is okay, but being liquid is not. If your soap is solid, cut it into bars. If it is mushy, liquid and almost pourable out of the mold, dump it into a bag and we will show you how to rebatch it next week. It will be just fine for the time being.
HI HI HI Andee
it is not liquid but really soft. I will try to take it out of the mold and see what it is like. If I can I will cut it into bars…..if not, I will put in a bag and wait post next week to learn more. THANK YOU! Emily
Kathy,
I did it! Thank you so much for the excellent pictures and instructions. I have been wanting to try hot process, but didn’t want to leave my CP comfort zone. I did not add color, scent or any additives, I just wanted to work on the technique. What I really liked was the part when you said “don’t lift the lid, don’t stir, just leave it alone”, how easy is that. It was fun comparing your pictures and watching my own pot in action. I made about a 2 1/2 pound batch so it only took about two hours to cook. I tried to glop as fast as I could, but the top was a little dry, I trimmed it and used the trim to remelt and made a couple of heart shaped soaps. Next time I would make a little more to account for the trim. All in all, it was pretty easy, I want to try it again!
Thanks for sharing, Terry
Terry,
Yes – Yes – Yes!! I’m so glad that it went so well for you! On your next batch you can try some colorant and scent ;o)
Now for the dryness ~ did you use the full amount of liquid called for? The other thing that comes to mind is 2.5 # batch in a 6 quart crockpot. Now if your crock pot is smaller, that wouldn’t have made the batch dry out like that. Or maybe it cooked too long? With a small batch, it shouldn’t cook longer than 1 to 1.5 hours. Did your batch fold over on itself at the 2 hour mark?
I’m just sooo glad my instructions/pics worked (or made sense – LOL!) for someone!! Please let us know how your next batch turns out! I’m going to try a batch with the Sodium Lactate just to see if it pours instead of glops! If it looks like it’s going to pour, then I can try a 2 color swirl!!
Thank you for letting me know it worked out for you!
Kathy
Kathy,
Re: the water amount, I used 10.6 oz for my 28 oz oil. The lye calculator I use has a default number of 38 for “water as % of oils”. Should I increase that percentage, if so what would you recommend? Also, is a higher percentage in general better for HP?
My soap did fold over just before the two hour mark, next time I will watch it more carefully to see if it is ready before that. It was a pretty nice creamy texture when I glopped it into the mold, it was just the last scrapping of the pot that caused the dryness on the very top. I probably could have even poured it, if I had a third hand to scrape!
I know my 5-6 qt pot is a little big for my small batch, but it cooks at a nice low temp on low and I didn’t have to worry about it out growing the pot.
Yes, my next batch will include some color and scent.
Terry
First of all, great tutorial! Secondly, where did you get your mold? Lastly, HP is my favorite method!!!
I e-mailed Kathy to ask her your question and here is her response.
“How nice that someone is still looking at that tutorial! I love HP soapmaking also!
My hubby makes all of my wooden molds for me. He made several sizes of wooden logs, 2 slab molds and a dual cutter (straight edge and crinkle
cut). I didn’t want to take a chance in selling them until I got insurance…which is my goal this year. I want to sell soap!!!
Now, IMO, I think HP is better done in a log mold because it has less exposed area. The slab has too much of an exposed area – it dries out too
quickly, then you have to cut off the parts that dried quicker than it should have. With a log, you just have to cut off the top! This is strictly aesthetics – but you want all of your soap bars to look good!
Here’s a pic of both of my slabs: HERE
Wooden Soap Mold ~ 5 # Slab with Rulers (ruler = 3.5″ x 10″ to score top of soap to make 2 logs) 10 x 7w x 3.5d (inches)
Wooden Soap Mold ~ 7 # Slab (Rulers not shown) (ruler = 3″ x 13″ to score top of soap to make 3 logs) 13 x 9w x 2.5d (inches)
We could not find the right material to make the inserts – but to be honest, those inserts are a pain to remove from the soap…and 9 times out of 10,
the soap would stick to the inserts and wouldn’t come out clean.
Hope that helped you! If you have a way to make your own slabs – you’re better off!
Thanks ;o)
Kathy”
HI all,
I am supper new to making soaps infact I am just collecting all the items to make bar soap at the moment. Currently I have everything I need except for Lye. I know this sounds wierd but I can’t find it anywhere and when I try to buy it online the shipping is way more then the cost of the Lye lol. So I know this question may not belong here but I hope ya’ll will understand. Where in the world do you get it? I had a few people tell me that you can use a certain type of draino and of course it does have the same sodium hydroxide but for some reason that doesn’t sit well with me unless I get the go ahead from an experienced soap maker. Soooooo any help for a new mommy in SLC???
Jamie,
Look for Roebic drain cleaner. I can find it at the local home improvement stores. You are looking for a product that contains 100% Sodium Hydroxide. If you can’t find it, Hi-Valley Chemical in Centerville, UT. It isn’t that far from SLC, but they do supply lye. Give them a call, (Tel: 866-221-1594) and ask for Sodium Hydroxide or Caustic Soda. You do not need the Lab grade as Technical Grade is cost effective and just fine for soap. They do offer it in small quantities.
Andee,
Thank you very much for the info. I will give them a jingle 🙂
I’ve just tried hot process for the first time using your tutorial and a trusted CP recipe. It was also my first time using a stick blender vs an “egg beater”. Between the ease of HP and the stick blender combined, this was unquestionably the easiest soap ever. My soap is cooking now, but had to jot a note while I had the moment. Thanks again Kathy.
I recently did a rebatch in my crock pot- approx. 6.5lb with 8oz goat’s milk (reconstituted). You’re gonna think i’m nuts…but…I FORGOT IT FOR APPROX 3 HOURS!!! ( Have a little one, losing my mind, etc., etc.) Well…the goat’s milk turned the batch a beautiful amber colour but, unfortunately, the milk scorched a bit- (dark bits). Would this be considered an (unplanned) HP? Is it good to go? SOap still smells great! Made 3 differents kinds with it. Can’t wait to actually try HP- I’m impatient with CP and want immediate gratification.
Also, did a CP and poured right into Pringles containers…bad idea. The soap didn’t harden, it gelled up and stayed gooey. I had to get it out and it is now drying in trays- looks like….glop. It is hardening but I wanted to know if it’ll be ok to use. The pringles containers are lined with Aluminum (?) and then there’s a layer of plastic over the foil. Unfortunately, I think the NaOH reacted with the Aluminum. Is is safe to use or should i make drain de-clogger with it? thanks in advance….Fa
Throw away the Pringles soap.
The hot process (HP) milk soap is fine, just cosmetically challenged.
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This is wonderful! Is there anything you can NOT make in the crockpot? 🙂 Thanks!
I hate to suggest Angel Food Cake because I am sure someone will prove it to be possible. HA!
Hi Kathy: I just started making hot process a week ago. Been using cold process for years. I love to cook, so hot process was really fun. I am truly amazed at the cook times in your tutorial, and this is why: I set out to make a small batch, and had my measurements using a lye calculator. Five or so minutes after all the oils had melted and lye solution added, I got a soft trace. I put the crock pot on high and left it for 15 minutes. Came back to check on it and it was beginning to turn in on itself. I stirred it once and left again. 15 minutes later, imagine my surprise, bubbles were breaking up against the glass lid. Instead of panicking, I disconnected the crock pot and let the bubbles die down by themselves. I then stirred it and realized it was already soap! I quickly added my scent, stirred like crazy, and filled my mold. Just in time, because the droppings from filling the mold were already hardened. Is it possible that cooking times depend on the QUANTITY of ingredients used?. If true, it could explain why things go wrong even when one follows the recipe. Maybe the outcome of the soap depends as much on time cooked as any other factors. Now wouldn’t that be something! Can’t wait to see how the soap looks tomorrow when I unmold.
Smaller batches can saponify much faster in comparison to larger batches. How big was your batch in oil weight? I hope you had fun and that your batch turned out well!
I’ve been making CP soaps for some time now, but have decided with demand to try HP. I have a question though. After it goes from a grainy liquid, to that mash potato look…it’s all done right? Even if it’s still a little on the goopy side?
I’m asking because I need to find a good point to add my EO’s. I don’t want them Flashing, but if I wait too long for the soap to cool, then they become a mess to put into the molding.
Also, I LOVE using coconut milk….however, I do not want to scorch it. Above I saw that you waited til after the cook to add your milk. But I am a little confused. Did you adjust your lye amount at first to only reflect what you originally put in BEFORE the cook? Or what?
– What i’ve been doing is keeping my shea butter out until the after the cook, but leaving the lye amount the same as if I had added the shea before the cook. The PH is still coming out 7-8. Which is mild 🙂 So would I just want to do that with the coconut milk too??
Please let me know:)
Thanks for your time!
Anna, Please call our office for a mini lesson on making soap for production before you resort to hot process full time. I think we can help you make the soap ready sooner without making ugly soaps.
I would love to call…i may be missing it, but I do not see an number. Could you please let me know what you’d like me to call and if I should talk to someone in particular….Kind of feel like I need to talk to the principal. HAHA.
If you do not want to post the number, please email my business at labellenaturelle@yahoo.com
Thank you
Anna,
You can call our main number at (435)755-0863. Just ask for someone on our technical support team. I promise this is much easier than talking to the principal. Our technical support team will be able to assist you with any questions you may have and they also have a great sense of humor. Just give us a call, we are here to help!
We are making this recipe today and had a question regarding the addition of 12 Tb of goats milk powder into the 3 oz water, it seemed like a lot of goats milk powder to have the end result be slushy. We did not see any other comments about this issue so took the advice of an earlier post and called HQ for technical support. How great was it to get right through to a technical support person, Andee to be exact, who was very helpful. We conferred and on our end decided to cut the goats milk powder by half. It was thick, but not pasty (which we had feared with 12 Tb.) So we’re half way through the HP process and things are going well. Thanks again to Andee for her advice and support!
I’m glad to hear it worked well for you!