My last batch had a technique variation that, amazingly, i must never have done before. Or, more likely, a combination of small factors.
Anway, i dosed the methoxide (sodium) to a cold batch as it was heating.
After a while, the whole job turned to jelly. So much so that my little tam struggled and blocked, and the whole lot just went very wrong.
Thankfully, i have a mono, so was able to pump the sludge about whilst it was heating, wondering what technique i was going to use to ort out the mess. At about 55c i took another sample, and forgot about it - it still went to jelly, but with a transition to black down the sample jar.
By 60c, i had a quick splitting mix that stayed entirely fluid on top of the glycerol phase.
So i would say that re-enforces that jelly can (sometimes, but not always!) just be a transtion phase. Ive had batches before that additional chemicals have broken the jelly, and ive had ones where additional chem has resulted in solid lumps - so theyre not all alike, but certainly this one split through additional processing time / heat.
One thing that should be noted - i used the dregs from my setting drums as the glyc wash (theres always some koh glyc fall out at the bottom) so im wondering if there was a whole load of dissolved soap that contributed. The s1 glyc removed went proper solid, so that would support that also.
Regardless, this is an instance of jelly as an interim stage of processing.
