I should say this thread has rather drifted, but it's all to do with reducing ASM quantities. First off I had several batches where I could get a complete reaction using bases of around 3.5-4, whilst ignoring the titration value. I suspect on those batches, the oil would have titrated low if I'd bothered to check.
In emulating that process on other oil I've come across these "phases" of conversion. Realising that jelly seemed to be a function of too little catalyst, I just carried on adding and ended up with a good conversion.
So yes, you've pretty much got it, except the oil was as dry as I could get it. Dried with a condenser at over 100°C ... I haven't yet tried it with knowingly wet oil. Could be worth a jam jar size batch to try.
If you remember when you were round fly tipping your soap, I'd done some experiments with soap and glycerine. That produced a substance that didn't give a 3/27 result at all, but was clear and liquid and would process normally into bio. I recon I'd hit the second phase in the photos above using the catalyst remaining in the glycerine ... all same glycerine washing.
I've done some jam jar tests on your soap and grossly over dosing with catalist pushed it to reasonable bio. So I'll shortly bite the bullet and try a whole batch slowly dosing until I get the phase changes and temperature rise.
Are you going to ask for it back now? Don't forget you'll have to convert it with the next couple of weeks.
