I know I'm a little late to the party but...
RE:
@KiwiMoose question:
Just from the reading I have been doing it seems that coconut milk can overheat? If I make it in a loaf mould is it best not to cover it? Will it still gel ( I want it to)?
Any tips from experienced coconut milk users appreciated.
I use coconut milk (and goat milk) as a
full water replacement. I used Organic Thai Kitchen brand (with guar gum). I freeze it into cubes and I add a wee bit of liquid milk at the end to make up for the fluid amount the cubes were deficient.
I do an ice bath when adding the lye, but then wait for it to become room temp, or just set into a bowl of warm water, soap at room temp. It'll false trace in the lye mix!
I also strain it when adding into oils, just in case there is any undissolved lye (since you can't see thru it!). It doesn't overheat and I gel - the goat milk does over heat and looks better ungelled. My first batch of goat milk seized, gelled and volcanoed! (it was small, like an inch, I smashed it down.)
And I do notice a difference btwn an all water or all coconut/goat milk soap - but I may have been biased bcuz I knew which was which (not a blind test). Same recipe in both, water batch was super fatted, coconut milk batch wasn't (cuz of the fat in the milk).
@Chris_S You can make your own almond milk by grinding nuts, adding water, grinding some more and draining/squeezing out the fluid thru a muslin. Costly. Never tried it in soap though. Try it and let us know?
@atiz @DeeAnna has a guide for using acids in soap. It's the lactic acid/lye combo that you need to compensate for. It's on her Classic Bells page, I don't have the link thou. Edit: Found it!
https://classicbells.com/soap/lacticAcid.html
