I just made a 40 g batch and it did not mix well at all. Thick and light brown color. Did not seperate. This happened once befor and it was like crisco, very thick. Any idea's on what went wrong. It was about 75 degrees out and we just took the veg oil out of a bin. It was too cold possibly?? cg

What did the oil titrate to? Was it water free? You need to process at a higher temp (140F) or mix for a LONG time (8 hours). Did you use NaOH or KOH? We really need more information to be of any help to you.

I tried again and had a bigger mess,
much thicker and clumpy chunks of fat. Could this be from water in the oil/grease.
How do you test wvo for water and purity. We do not test at all. cg

I use NAOH, what is KOA? The thickening happens within 2-3 min. Thats how I know things are not good.

What's the titration? It sounds like instant hard NaOH soap formation from high titration oil to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Carmine:
I tried again and had a bigger mess,
much thicker and clumpy chunks of fat. Could this be from water in the oil/grease.
How do you test wvo for water and purity. We do not test at all. cg

If you don't heat your oil, you will not get a good reaction. As far as water is concerned, do a search here for the "hot pan test".

quote:

How do you test wvo for water and purity.

The simplest test is putting some WVO in a hot pan...if it crackles alot, it has alot of water. If it crackles a little, it has a little water.

If you want to be scientific, put a known volume of oil in, heat until the cracking stops, let it cool and measure the volume again. Gives you a rough idea of the % water in the oil. ((B4-After)/B4 * 100)

KOH is the other catalyst you can use; potassium hydroxide rather than sodium hydroxide. It has some differences in procedure and makes a liquid soap by-product instead of a solid soap by product, which allows you to use slightly higher titration oil without major issues.