Our sincerest thanks to regular forum members and contributors to the Fresholi Community, Eire and Elaine, for kindly producing this very useful document that will be very useful to many people.  Thank you!! :o)

Some consider CPHP to be more rustic in appearance than CP soap. A smooth uniform bar is just as achievable using the crock pot method. Out lined below are some tips to help in the process.

Use full water or up to 3% extra, do not discount or use a stronger lye solution. It can result in dry flaky soap.

Milk powders are best added after the cook, dissolved in a little water or mixed to a thin slurry with the superfatting oil.

For beer soap replace the lye water with beer and ensure beer is totally flat, the beer can be simmered to boil off the alcohol. This will help avoid a ‘volcano’.

If batch starts to volcano, stir down if necessary, leave lid off crock to let batter cool a little.

Pine Tar should be added when the oils go into the crock.

Clays can be added to warm oils at the beginning and stick blended in to ensure they are fully incorporated.

Sugar at 1 tbsp per pound of oil will help give a smoother consistency and add more bubbles. Take a small amount of water from liquid, warm and dissolve sugar. Once cooled, this can be added to cooled lye mix or added straight to emulsified oil mixture.

Sodium Lactate added to lye solution, or if powdered dissolved in some of the lye water allowance and added at thin trace, will allow for smoother batter consistency and a harder finished soap. Too much will result in a crumbly soap.

Cook on lowest heat setting in crock.

Stir as little as possible during process.

Add 1tbsp of glycerine per pound of oils.

Add superfatting oils after cook.

Add fos/eos after the cook. Ensure batter temp is below that of flash point of chosen fragrances.

After putting batter into moulds, bang mould on floor to even out and get rid of air bubbles.

A very cold damp sponge or oiled gloved hands can be used to smooth out top. Heavy duty plastic can be applied to the top and left in place until soap is cured. Textured plastic/the bubble side of bubblewrap cut to size and weighted (place thin wood or stiff card between plastic and weights) will give a textured top.

Weight can be applied to top for a more even finish. Wrap mould in towels, as when gelling a cold process batch, this really does help give a smoother texture to finished bar. Final bars can be bevelled and planed for a more uniform and even finish.