adding almond milk

[davidsoaps]

At point should almond milk be added during the cold soap making process?

 

[lsg]

If you freeze it to the slushy stage and use an ice water bath you can dissolve the lye in it.

 

[davidsoaps]

A recipe on soapmakingresource.com has me adding the almond milk immediately after mixing the lye with my oils. But I have heard that raising the temperature of the milk too fast may cause it to burn.. or is that with goat's milk? maybe thats not the case with almond milk..

 

[davidsoaps]

If you freeze it to the slushy stage and use an ice water bath you can dissolve the lye in it.

Could you explain what you mean by an "ice water bath"

 

[SueSoap]

An ice water bath is when you sit the liquid/lye container in another container which has ice and water in it. When mixing milk with lye very slowly, the ice bath can keep the milk from scalding.

 

[danahuff]

Hi Davidsoaps,

I made a yogurt soap Monday night, and what I did was measure the amount I needed (I used half distilled water/half yogurt as my liquid), freeze it in an ice cube tray, and then the next day, I took it out and put it in a stainless steel pot. I put the pot inside a glass baking dish and added water and ice cubes to the baking dish so that the pot sat in an ice water bath. I added the lye just a little bit at a time, stirring until each bit was dissolved into the yogurt. I monitored the temperature, and it stayed low the whole time and didn't scald. I actually had to put in into a warm water bath (removed cold ice water from the baking dish and added hot tap water) to bring the temp up to 90º. It might have been an unnecessary step, but I was working with just olive and coconut oils, and my experience was that those oils alone took a long time to saponify.

 

[soapcakes]

The technique I use is very similar to Dana's. I freeze my (homemade) almond milk into ice cubes and slowly add the lye, a little bit at a time, it takes me about 20-25 mins to dissolve all the lye (I don't take temps).

 

[Lindy]

There is another way of doing it. Do a 50:50 Water:Lye (equal parts lye & water) then take the rest of your liquid and use almond milk. Warm up the almond milk and keep it warm (I like to use a double boiler so I don't scorch the milk). Add the warmed milk to your oils - SB it together and then add your lye. Carry on as usual. This method can be used with any milk or even yoghurt.

Have fun.... :wink: