I used my same basic recipe, just substituted the cider for the same weight in water.I have some homemade cider which is just undrinkable could I use this instead of beer? It's a natural cider of apples, yeast and a little extra apple juice at the end of processing? If so does anyone has a good cider soap recipe I can experiment with please
The difference is the process, here is what works for me:
1. Weigh your cider, you want the weight to at least equal the weight of liquid you need
2. Simmer the cider for 20 minutes to get rid of any alcohol or carbonation. The amount of liquid will reduce as it simmers. That's ok. Just keep an eye on it, don't let it boil dry. Add a little distilled water to keep it from boiling dry, if needed. You want the liquid to reduce by about half.
3. While the cider is cooking, weigh out distilled water for half of the amount of liquid. Add the lye to this water and set aside to cool.
4. Once the cider is finished simmering, set the pan in an ice bath to cool.
5. Prepare your oils/fats.
6. Once the cider has cooled to 60 -70 F, weigh it. You need it to weigh 1/2 of your needed liquid amount. Add a little distilled water, if needed to get to the weight you need.
7. Once the lye water has reached room temperature, add the cider. Mix well. The sugars in the cider will make the lye mixture heat up a little and may give off a little burnt smell. That's ok. It will disappear as the soap cures.
8. Continue with your normal soap process.
Note that if you want the finished soap to smell like cider, you will need to add a fragrance.
Also, I usually simmer the cider the night before and let it set in the refrigerator overnight. But you can cool it more quickly with an ice bath, if that works better for you. For example, I don't always know in advance when I'll have a window of time to do some soaping. So the ice bath is good for those sudden bandwidths of time that appear.
Hope this helps.