This is the 36 bar birch mold with plastic dividers. I also bought the plastic bottom, I thought it would be a good idea. This mold would hold a lot of soap, I had to make sure the recipe I used would fill it. I picked a recipe that had apricot kernel, canola, olive, palm and coconut oil. I doubled it and off I went. I am trying to make all the recipes that I have all the supplies for, but never get around to making. I love all the swirling techniques Brambel Berry does in this mold, so I decided I would make a peach scented soap with yellow and pink swirls.
I added the lye to the oils and mixed with the electric stick blender. The soap is a liquid consistency at this point.
I mixed the soap some more, the mixture got thicker. You can see the ridges forming along the sides of the pot, also known as light trace.
More mixing, now it's thick enough, I am now at full trace. When the soap is dragged across the top of the soap, a line forms that doesn't immediately sink back into the soap.
Since I wanted to swirl, I didn't want the soap to trace too much, its much harder to swirl when the soap is a thick pudding consistency. I put some of the soap into 2 measuring cups and mixed in the colour. Sometimes adding colour will speed up the trace, or slow it down, so I had to move quickly.
I pored the rest of the pot into the mold. The I poured the colours over top. As you can see, the soap got too thick. Very hard to drizzle and swirl soap that is thicker than pudding.
I tried my best to swirl it, I ran my spatula from side to side, then up and down, without taking the spatula out of the soap.
Another problem with the soap being to thick, the colour wouldn't reach down to the bottom of the soap, so all the colour would stay on top. You can see the divots the spatual made, the soap was so thick it didn't shift back into place and stayed bumpy. I then put in the dividers.
The next day, I couldn't get the dividers out, the soap was too soft. So I left it for another day, the soap was still too soft, the soap wasn't coming away from the dividers, I was cutting it out of each space. This was leaving marks on the soap.
So I put the whole tray in the fridge. My trick for getting the soap to release from the molds is to put it in the freezer for a few hours, but this tray was way too big for the freezer. I figured in the fridge for an evening would help. This did help, it made the soap harder, it still took me forever to undo all the soap.
The colours didn't turn out the way I wanted, I wanted a soft pink and yellow, like a peach. I'm hoping they will mellow as the soap cures. If not, I have 36 bars of this.
I then had to clean all the soap off the dividers.
The soap stuck to the bottom as well. I can see why using the bottom is an option, if I had just used freezer paper to line the mold, I could just tear off the paper, rather than slide off each soap from the plastic.
This is a lesson learned, I think many things can be improved on. I need a recipe that makes a harder bar, I need to grease the dividers so they come out more easily, and not wait that long to pour the soap so I can get a better swirl. All things to try next time.
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