Lye Purity specificity for NaOH

[Earlene]

I can only find two lye calculators that allow for changing NaOH lye purity, and in some cases this is a useful feature.

I know of some soapers who actually have their own personal spreadsheets set up to allow for lye purity in the calculations and do test their lye for purity.

I have one question and one suggestion.

The question is: What is the assumed/default purity of NaOH/KOH in SoapBuilder? (Perhaps that is really two questions if both are different purities. )

The suggested feature: Add a lye purity setting that can be entered manually by the user who tests their lye purity. In addition, it would be good to also state or have a box that shows what the default lye purity is for the lye(s) chosen by the user who does not choose to specify.

I do believe this was discussed about a year ago at soapmakingforum.com, but I don't recall if there was going to be any follow up or maybe that suggestions got lost in the shuffle.

 

[Yooper]

We don't have a suggestion for NaOH, but that's a good idea. Ours has KOH, and it suggests 90% as the default if you don't know it. If you choose liquid or hybrid soap, you can enter your values for KOH:


I've never used a change in purity for NaOH, and haven't seen it in the other software I"ve used in the past. Which ones have that ability? I'd like to check it out.

 

[Earlene]

Thank you for your response.

Here are the two lye calculators that I have used that do allow for the user to change the default NaOH purity:

Beginner Lye Calculator for Soap Making

Try our beginner soap making lye calculator to easily create solid, liquid and cream soaps. Save your recipe and share with others!

www.lyecalc.com

SAPONIFICATION CALCULATOR - HANDCRAFTED SOAP MAKING

Saponification calculator for homemade and handcrafted soapmaking. Soapmaking tool.

calc.mendrulandia.es

The first one, LyeCalc, is ideal for this purpose because the user can set the lye purity to the exact number that they get from testing the purity of their lye using scientific methods described by Dr. Kevin Dunn, author of Scientific Soapmaking in this presentation, or by DeeAnna Weed in her Soapy Stuff files (reference). DeeAnna has also provided an excellent video tutorial as well, which is linked on that reference page showing how to do the Lye purity test an the equipment needed.

The second one, Mendrulandia, only allows the user to choose from 4 lye purity settings, so it is not the idea.

Please check it out. It would be really useful to many soapmakers, which is why we originally brought it up a year or so ago at soapmakingforum.com. (Reference) (Reference2) If you look through those threads, you will see a few of us participated in that discussion and at one point the idea that we wanted to guess at lye purity was floated by Yooper (here). Maybe that is why it got forgotten or passed over.

I just want to point out that a soap maker does NOT have guess at lye purity. As shown above in the links I have provided, any soapmaker can actually test the sodium hydroxide for purity and there are many who already have all the necessary equipment to do so.

 

[Yooper]

Thank you for your response.

Great information, thank you! I'll add this to our wish list again, and see how we can incorporate it.

 

[Earlene]

Thank you!