Coffee as colorant

mzimm · May 6, 2016

For those who have used it before, can I get a rich dark brown using coffee in a small amount of cp batter that would work as accent in a swirl? I would prefer no specks showing up in the soap.
Does it morph or bleed?
Does it play well with other colorants like TD or mica, if I wanted to mix lighter shades of it?
How best to apply it: infused grounds in oil? Finely ground instant added directly to batter? or mixed in oil first?
Is cocoa powder a better kitchen ingredient to try?
I don't have any brown micas (yet), but I do have a brown oxide I might use anyway, just considering all the options first.
Thanks!

Navaria · May 6, 2016

Do you mean brewed coffee or coffee grounds? The grounds will leave specks. I actually use coffee grounds in my kitchen sink soap for the pumice effect. Brewed coffee will give a brown color, but it won't be a really dark color. I have tried to infuse the grounds in oil, but it didn't work well with the hot infusion method. It ended up smelling of burnt coffee

mzimm · May 6, 2016

Navaria said:
Do you mean brewed coffee or coffee grounds? The grounds will leave specks. I actually use coffee grounds in my kitchen sink soap for the pumice effect. Brewed coffee will give a brown color, but it won't be a really dark color. I have tried to infuse the grounds in oil, but it didn't work well with the hot infusion method. It ended up smelling of burnt coffee

Ok, that answers my question about coffee grounds and brewed coffee. How about really pulverized instant coffee crystals?

TeresaT · May 6, 2016

mzimm said:
Ok, that answers my question about coffee grounds and brewed coffee. How about really pulverized instant coffee crystals?

I made "Kitchen soap" last year using instant coffee crystals. I made super strong coffee (it was like syrup) and used that as my water replacement for my lye solution. The soap came out to be a beautiful dark brown. I used a PVC pipe and they looked like hockey pucks. I'll post a photo as soon as I'm able to (phone is in the other room).

Anyway, to answer your question, based on my experience, if you made a syrupy solution out of coffee crystals using some of the water from your solution and used that as a colorant for your batter, I think it would work really well. I would imagine it wouldn't be any different than using any other natural colorant as long as it was completely dissolved first then mixed well into your emulsified batter. It might be worth the experiment on a small batch. (Hmmm, I've got a couple of coffee fragrance oils to try out...)

ETA: photo.

mzimm · May 6, 2016

TeresaT said:
I made "Kitchen soap" last year using instant coffee crystals. I made super strong coffee (it was like syrup) and used that as my water replacement for my lye solution. The soap came out to be a beautiful dark brown. I used a PVC pipe and they looked like hockey pucks. I'll post a photo as soon as I'm able to (phone is in the other room).

Anyway, to answer your question, based on my experience, if you made a syrupy solution out of coffee crystals using some of the water from your solution and used that as a colorant for your batter, I think it would work really well. I would imagine it wouldn't be any different than using any other natural colorant as long as it was completely dissolved first then mixed well into your emulsified batter. It might be worth the experiment on a small batch. (Hmmm, I've got a couple of coffee fragrance oils to try out...)

ETA: photo.

Thanks Teresa! Yes, that's the brown I'm looking for. I just made a thick gooey syrup and mixed about 1/2 tsp into a bar's worth of MP to see how the batter might thin down the color, and it's hardening right now. Stinks! Lol. But it's dark. Don't need much for my swirl. I'd rather mix it with oil, but I can't seem to get the crystals into a fine enough powder to eliminate specks.

TeresaT · May 6, 2016

mzimm said:
Thanks Teresa! Yes, that's the brown I'm looking for. I just made a thick gooey syrup and mixed about 1/2 tsp into a bar's worth of MP to see how the batter might thin down the color, and it's hardening right now. Stinks! Lol. But it's dark. Don't need much for my swirl. I'd rather mix it with oil, but I can't seem to get the crystals into a fine enough powder to eliminate specks.

Oh, yeah! I totally forgot to tell you. It stinks like crazy!! But the smell comes out in the cure. My bars don't smell like anything but soap. They also lather a bit on the brown side, but they don't stain. (And you're welcome. Glad I could help.)