Crockpot Soap Rebatching

2 lbs of "shredded" soap bits.
6 ounces of water (3 ounces per pound)[Yes, really, only 6 ounces is enough]

Start off with crockpot set between "Warm" & 200 degrees

After first hour in crockpot, stir the soap glop a total of 3 times at one hour intervals

--Harena (talk) 19:20, 13 June 2014 (EDT)

Details

A good starting place with a week-old batch of soap would be about 2 or 3 ounces of liquid per pound of grated soap. Start with 2... if it just doesn’t seem “wet” enough, add another.

Note: The only problem with adding too much water is that the more water you add in the rebatching, the more that has to cure out of the soap before it’s good to use. So don’t stress out too much about using too much liquid.

Take your grated soap and put it into a crock pot or a glass oven dish that you can tightly cover.

Add the liquid and stir it up gently.

Set your crock pot on “low” or your oven on 150° - 170°. Put the lid on it and let it heat. Set the timer for an hour. Go read a book.

This is not a quick process.

After letting the soap heat for an hour or so, open the lid and stir gently. At this point, you may just be able to mash it around a bit. You’ll see it’s probably starting to just begin to liquefy (to the consistency of thick applesauce,) and that the edges of the mass of soap are starting to get a bit translucent.

Gently stir it up and put it in for another hour or so.

After another hour, the soap will have liquefied more and will be more homogeneously translucent.

What you want is for it to be completely liquefied (or at least completely softened) and translucent. It will look like a big pot of soap going through a hot gel stage. Stir it up again, mashing out any big lumps, and let it heat some more.

In my crock pot, on low setting, this will take about 4 hours total.

When it’s to a consistency that you think it’s “pourable,” it’s time to add any additives (other than the lye solution) that you want to add. Stir it up well to make sure that the additives are well incorporated into the soap.

If you're rebatching unscented soap, add a little less fragrance than you normally would. 1/2 ounce per pound of soap is a good place to start.

Scoop or glop the soap into the mold you want to use, pushing the soap down with a spoon or rubber spatula, and tapping the mold on the counter to help the soap settle into the mold.

Let the soap set up for 24 hours or so. After that, you should be able to pop it out of the mold or slice it. Let it cure until it’s hardened completely. How much extra cure time you’ll need to add will depend on how much extra liquid you added.

Past that, treat it like you would any other of your homemade soaps!

Reference

Detailed instructions are based on an earlier version of How to Rebatch Soap to Fix Mistakes (originally at about.com)