Bastille Coconut Praline (wife's bar)

Nurture 5 lb Loaf — Cold Process Method

Batch #3 — April 2, 2026

⚠️ This batch overflowed the mold. It was made at 1,787g oils — the Nurture mold's cavity volume mistaken for its oil capacity. Total batter (~2,890g) was too much for the cavity and spilled over the liner onto the wood frame (and into the lid channel) when the lid went on. To reproduce safely, cap oils at 1,600g — corrected figures are in the notes below. This is the batch that established the 1,600g ceiling.

⚠️ The lye was also wrong. 246g is exactly 2× Batch #1's 123g — it was scaled, not recalculated, the one mistake the house rule now forbids. The correct figure for 1,787g at 5% superfat is ~243g; at 246g the batch actually ran ~3.9% superfat, about 1.1 points below its label. Harmless here (still well superfatted), but it is why the rule is now "every lye weight comes from the calculator, never from scaling."

Mold: Nurture Handmade 5 lb Premium (18" L x 3.5" W x 2.5" H liner cavity) Yield (as made): ~13–15 bars at 3cm (short loaf after overflow) | Cure: 4–6 weeks | Active: ~1 hour Scaled from: Batch #1 Bastille at ~2× — 1,787g oils vs 900g

Safety: glasses and gloves before lye · lye into water, never the reverse · ventilate · soap-only equipment · raw batter is caustic until cured.

Recipe (as made — 1,787g, overflowed)

5% superfat (intended). Oil blend 72% olive / 18% coconut / 10% castor. Fragrance is a 90:10 Coconut+Praline / SVW blend at the strong ~6.7% rate (120g). The SVW at 10% just warms the gourmand base — it won't read as the "manly" smoke it does off the bottle. Both brown heavily → expect a deep, uniform brown bar.

✅ Corrected for safe reproduction (1,600g oils): Olive 1,152g / Coconut 288g / Castor 160g · water 608g · lye 218g · sodium lactate 20ml · kaolin 32g · FO ~107g at 90:10. Everything else below is unchanged. (Lye and fill are the calculator's figures — verify on SoapCalc before pouring, per house rule.)

Instructions

Step 1 — Gear Up

Glasses and gloves on. Ventilation on. Pre-weigh everything into separate containers. Coconut+Praline accelerates slightly — have the clay slurry and FO fully prepped before trace.

Step 2 — Prep the Mold

Assemble the silicone liner in the wood frame, push-out holes down; set the clear acrylic lid aside. No towel insulation — the clear lid handles soda ash.

Step 3 — Lye Solution (allow ~30 min to cool)

1. Weigh the water into the All-Clad 3qt bowl
2. Weigh the lye separately
3. Pour lye into water — never reverse. Stir until clear (heats to ~185°F, brief fumes — don't lean over it)
4. Stir in the sodium lactate
5. Cool to ~105–120°F

Step 4 — Prepare the Oils

1. Melt the coconut oil, then combine with the olive and castor in the All-Clad 5qt bowl — reserve a ~30ml splash of the olive oil for the clay slurry
2. Pre-combine the Coconut+Praline + SVW in a cup and set aside
3. Bring oils to ~105–120°F, within ~10°F of the lye

Step 5 — Combine and Trace

1. Pour the cooled lye solution into the oil bowl
2. Stick-blend in 5–10s bursts, alternating with hand stirring
3. Blend to light trace — the large volume gives you working time, but the C+P will start to move, so don't dawdle

Step 6 — Clay and Fragrance

1. Mix the kaolin clay into the reserved olive oil until smooth, then stir the slurry into the batter
2. Add the FO blend and hand-stir 1–2 min — do not stick-blend after fragrance; work quickly

Step 7 — Pour, Spritz, Lid (24–48h in mold)

1. Pour into the liner; smooth the top
2. Spritz the top with 99% IPA
3. Seat the clear acrylic lid (at 1,600g this clears; at 1,787g it forced batter into the channel — slide the lid off at the 12–18h mark before it hardens if this happens)
4. Leave undisturbed 24–48h

Step 8 — Unmold and Cut

1. Firm and not sticky before you pull it
2. Remove the wood sides, lift the liner, peel it off the loaf
3. Cut at ~3cm → ~15 bars (fewer here, given the short loaf)

Step 9 — Cure (4–6 weeks)

1. Rack with airflow on all sides; cool, dry, out of direct sun
2. 4 weeks minimum; 6–8 is better for high-olive bars
3. Label with the batch date

Batch Notes

• Method era: slurry clay (into reserved oil, after trace) · All-Clad 5qt/3qt bowls · clear lid (first Nurture-mold batch). Still the pre-refinement process
• The overflow: 1,787g was the mold's 0.4-rule oil weight read as a batter volume — real batter is ~60% oil by volume, so it ran to ~109% of the cavity. Corrected ceiling is 1,600g (see above). First Nurture batch, first big batch
• Fragrance chosen solo (no heavy SVW) because it was her bar — gourmand coconut/caramel/praline, browns dark
• Left ~5g Coconut + Praline in inventory after this batch

Outcome

• Poured 2026-04-02, overflowed on lid seating (caustic cleanup on the frame), cut ~2026-04-04 at ~3cm → ~15 bars from the short loaf. Fill computed at ~109% — the documented failure the calculator now catches.
• Cure verdict: not recorded. Cured long ago; no note on how the gourmand scent held, how dark it browned, or how the bar performed. A cured retro would close it out.

Resources

• Lye calculator: SoapCalc.net
• Supplies: Nurture Handmade | Brambleberry | Jedwards International (Braintree, MA — local)