Test Batch #1 Complete! - What I learned, and moving forward!
over 3 years ago
– Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 11:38:25 PM
I made the first test batch on Tuesday using all the materials for the final bars. I learned a lot with this first test run of the full recipe, and I'll be tweaking it a bit in the next batch. For full transparency (and because I find it interesting and hope you will too) I wanted to walk you through what I did to make these bars, the mistakes I made, and talk about the changes I'll be making! I took pictures of the process to share with you!
All of the ingredients are measured using that teeny scale you see in the above image - since I needed one that was accurate to a hundredth of an ounce. I measured out the materials I needed to heat/melt separately from the materials I don't need to heat - it's actually very important to not heat your extracts too much or else they'll lose some of their beneficial properties!
Another important note - everything I use to handle and contain the ingredients (containers, spoons, pans, etc) are sprayed down with 90+% isopropyl alcohol and dried beforehand. This not only increases the safety of the product from a sanitation standpoint, but also ensures that the bars will stay fresh for as long as possible. If they happened to get contaminated from something hanging out on my tools they could go rancid faster (and currently, with the natural preservatives I put in them, they should be able to stay good for at least 6 months. Possibly even a year as long as they're kept well!)
Next I move the meltable ingredients over to my double boiler setup. These pots I got are super neat! they're made with a little hook system that lets me lay them over any of my standard pots regardless of size (these are probably not new to most of you, but I used to go with a glass bowl and a pot - so this is neat to me haha). By boiling the water at a medium temperature I can slowly heat up the ingredients and let them melt without damaging them.
This is actually where I made my first error that I'll be fixing in the next run. I thought that the coconut milk powder would dissolve in the heat and mix smoothly with the butter and wax. I completely forgot the fact that it's only water soluble! So the bars ended up a little grainy this time around - in the next batch I'll be pre-dissolving the coconut milk powder with a little bit of hot water to make a smooth paste and mix it in after, to ensure no grainy texture. The candelilla wax doubles as both a hardener and an emulsifier - meaning once I mix everything together the wax will ensure my oil-soluble ingredients and my water-soluble ingredients don't separate. So adding the extra water won't be that much of an issue.
Once the solids are all nice and liquefied, I give them a little bit to cool down before I mix them with the rest of the ingredients. I wait until they're right around 140-150 degrees Fahrenheit so they stay hot enough to pour smoothly after mixing, but won't be too hot to hurt the extracts.
See the little grains on my spatula and the sides of the pot? That's when I realized the coconut milk powder hadn't dissolved 😂 lesson learned!
The warm and meted ingredients get poured into the previous container that had the oils and extracts, and then I use an emulsion blender to thoroughly mix it all together. This first test batch was only enough to make 5 bars, so it looks like I'll definitely need to get a larger spout jug for when I start making fulfillment batches!
I was making the Pure (Unscented) variety, so I didn't add any colorant or fragrance to the bars this time. If I was going to, they would be added after the bars had been well-mixed and had cooled a bit more - around 120 degrees at the most to ensure the fragrance doesn't evaporate away.
The liquid lotion is then poured into the bar molds and left to cool and harden. These guys took a looong time to harden - I had to leave them overnight. It's very obvious when they're ready though, they change color drastically.
The next morning I unmolded the now-ivory colored bars. They, unfortunately, were very very soft - hence the breakage you see here. They felt almost like actual butter - which is funny and thematic but not practical for a solid lotion bar.
No worries, though! I know what I did wrong and I'll be adjusting accordingly in the next test batch (the solid:oil ratio was a bit off - I'll be adding more kokum butter and candelilla wax to the next one). That's why I bought materials early - to get tests like this one out of the way so I can ensure I'm making the best product I possibly can for you all.
I hope you all enjoyed this little update. I'm having a blast working with these new natural materials and honestly feel like even with the little whoopsies I pulled with this batch I'm making great progress! As a little funny end-note: I had a few people comment that these over-soft bars look a bit like cheese. I would be lying if I said my brain didn't tell me to take a bite a few of the times I walked past the unmolded bars.
Also, you might like to know that a few testers who tried out these bars and gave feedback said the unscented variety smells like herbal tea!
Let me know what you think of the process, or if there's anything you'd like me to talk about more! For this next batch I'll be trying out my new mica colors. Comment and let me know what color(s) you'd like to see!
Also, if you haven't yet, make sure you go vote on which pin design you would like made for the unlocked Extra shop item! You can go pick your favorite by commenting on the previous update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arkbarkarts/arks-all-natural-body-butter-bars/posts/2956906
Thanks everyone! Let's keep pushing forward and see if we can hit our last stretch goal! If we do, I might have a few surprises for you ;)
