QUESTION: How much liquid soap will your 6 Gallon Oil Tank make?
ANSWER:
The Tank holds 48 pounds (768 ounces). Using a 95% fill rate, this would be 45.6 lbs (729 ounces).
Assumptions: Paste is 50% of the 95% fill rate (or 364.5 ounces).
For 100% dilutions, you add 100% of the total amount of paste.
For 50% dilutions, you add 50% of the total amount of the paste.
For 75% dilutions, you add 75% of the amount of paste.
Results to above dilutions would be:
50% dilution = 546.75 ounces of liquid soap
75% dilution = 637.87 ounces of liquid soap
100% dilution = 729 ounces of liquid soap
QUESTION: How much water do I need to add to my lye (potassium hydroxide) to make the paste?
ANSWER:
This can vary but the easiest method for me is to have enough water to equal three times the amount of the potassium hydroxide used. So, if my lye solution was 12 pounds (192 ounces), I would have 36 pounds of water (576 ounces) in my tank and add the potassium hydroxide to it. When using tanks, I usually work with a maximum of 50% of the fill rate for the paste stage (base oils and potassium hydroxide solution). This allows me room to use different dilution rates. The exception would be if using a dilution of greater than 100%, then you would want less paste.