quote:

Originally posted by bellevent:
What does the glycerin pretreatment do to lower the titration test results? How does it lower the acid value?

I wondered about this too.. Do the FFAs reform with the mono an diglycerides in your oil?
Or is it the left over caustic in the glycerine that reacts with the FFAs to form more soaps?
Or is it a bit of both..

My guess would be,its residual caustic in the glyc reacting out with the ffa-making soap.but you do not see this soap,I guess it drops into the glyc layer on settling.Also there is possibly a small bio reaction starting with the residual meth and caustic in the glyc,(and the glyc is probably giving up some bio anyway)for after pretreat you can get away with less meth than 20%.I currently use 17.5% but because of no problems I am going to reduce it further.I pretreat each batch three times,oldest glyc first-since doing this,I get the lowest soaps ever .I water wash and bubble right from wash one-no emulsion problems (yet)