Goat farmer

[fillycate]

Hello! I have been flirting with the idea of being a soap maker for a very long time. I am a passionate and dedicated dairy goat farmer, and I love the idea of using my milk to make soap, and maybe lotions and other things.

I joined this forum maybe a decade ago and made exactly one batch of soap, failed in multiple ways (accidentally made a whipped soap full of air bubbles that disappears quickly and had soda ash), and never tried again. Until now.

I actually poured my first batch in a decade earlier today. It was just:

12.16 oz frozen goat milk

9.6 oz of coconut oil

22.4 oz EV olive oil

4.7 oz of old lye (I bought a decade ago, but didn't finish using)

(I used SoapCalc, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.)

I even tried to use my cheap stick blender from back then, and it gave up the ghost about 10 minutes in. I whisked for about an hour after that and poured the golden elixir into a cardboard box lined with parchment paper. I did what I did because it was what I had on hand. I figured if the soapmaking bug bit hard, I would start spending money after that.

I poured it having never reached trace, but relatively sure it was emulsified, and hoped for the best. It is sitting at room temp because it didn't really seem like it was going to do much more heating up.

I have a few odd questions for the community, questions about things that I am having trouble finding information about, maybe because they are BAD IDEAS. It can be hard to find out about bad ideas, because no one is doing them, hence no one is talking about them. But I am the sort of person who likes to know: What would happen if?.... I want to know *why* they are bad ideas.

First of all, why not sun cure soap? I live in sunny California, and I saw a post about the Delany sisters and their time-tested recipe where they bleached their soap in the sun. Goat milk soap is often tan when finished unless you add a whitener. I find myself wondering, could I whiten goat milk soap without additives if I put it in sunlight for a time? Seems like it would speed the curing time also, evaporating water faster and warming the soap to speed the chemical saponification process. And yet, I see everyone cautioning to keep curing soap *out* of direct sunlight. So, my curious mind says, whyyyyy?

Also, I am very curious about the idea of making goat milk *only* soap. I did see at least one other person ask about this. I know, I know, way too much water content for the small fat percentage. (I have Nigerian Dwarves which can have up to %10 butterfat.) But... But... What if I made a liquid soap with KOH? Don't we end up adding water *back* into it anyway when we dilute the paste? And what if a lot of the water cooked out in the slowcook process? And then I still find myself wondering about a goat milk only bar soap that is poured thin and sun cured to evaporate the water.

One more thing. I can't figure out how to plug goat milk into SoapCalc. The FAQ says I can enter it where I would enter water, but I am not seeing that. I had to guess when I threw together the above recipe, taking the superfat down to %2 to be on the safe side. Does anyone know how much goat butter fat weighs? It would be super useful to the running of my dairy operation to be able to take a half gallon bottle of milk and know the weight of the fat in it so I can make a recipe based on that. I am interested in making large batches of melt and pour for later use.

If y'all can help me with my bizarre and obscure questions, I would be very grateful.

 

[shunt2011]

Welcome back. Congratulations on your soap.

I wouldn’t cure the soap in the sun. You are asking for trouble. It would likely cause rancidity over time.

Don’t think you’d ever get soap with just GM. Wouldn’t even try personally.

You don’t need to put in GM in the soap calculator. Just sub it for the recommended water. That’s what I do. I just sub the water with mils, beer, aloe Vera juice, coffee. Etc.

 

[fillycate]

Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing how this batch comes out.

Okay, so sunlight can cause rancidity? I understand there are likely reasons people don't put their soap in the sun, I just want to understand what those reasons are, since the Delany sister's apparently put their soap in the sun to whiten it.

Good to know that the fat content, sugars, and other solids in goat milk don't affect the recipe at all when replacing the water.

 

[lsg]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[TheGecko]

I make GMS all the time and my bars are a cream color with no additives. The key to getting cream colored bars is to freeze your goat mix, use an ice bath and never allowing your solution to get above 70F. Yes it takes longer, but it's the first thing I start doing and in between adding in the lye, I am busy getting my hard oils melted and adding my soft oils, and measuring out my FO (I don't add colorants) and getting my mold(s) ready.

You can get a whiter bar, but you won't be able to use Olive Oil or any oil/butter with a 'yellow' hue to it...you can try lard, coconut oil and shea butter as a combination.

The only way to make soap with only goat milk is to separate the cream from the milk like you were making butter...though I have never heard of goat butter. Anyhoo...then it would be a matter of making some test batches using "Milk Fat, any bovine" as your starting point.

I would not put my soap in the sun to dry. I have no science to back up my opinion...just sounds like a bad idea.

The fat content, sugars and solids do affect your soap. If I use fresh from the goat milk I get speckles in my soap...which is okay since I don't color my GMS. You can avoid this by emulsifying your milk before freezing (or by buying it in the store). The sugar content is the reason why 1) the lye will burn the milk, 2) can cause the soap to overheat during saponification. You can mitigate this by freezing your milk and using an ice bath and refrigerating or freezing when the weather warms up. And the fat content adds to your superfat which leaves you with more unsaponified oils at the end. You can either lower your superfat or eliminate it all together.

 

[GemstonePony]

Welcome! As someone who also loves throwing things together to see what happens, I look forward to your experimentation!
I don't have too much soap experience, but I do have some chemistry experience. Here is my understanding of why it's not recommended:
The radiation in sunshine breaks down pretty much everything it touches, making molecules easier for bacteria and mold to digest and breaking chemical bonds. While this will also have a sterilizing effect (breaking apart viruses and killing bacteria and mold) while the bars are in the sun, once they are inside for use, mold and bacteria will have a much easier time eating your soap. This molecular denaturing can cause a whitening effect (until nature's decay becomes viewable with your naked eye, at least) as the changes to the soap's molecular makeup obstruct sunlight passing through, and reflect more light back instead. You might be able to get away with it for bars that will be used up completely not long after they're made, but you have no way of knowing how long it will be until you're washing with mold and other organisms.
I'm sure there are some significantly more knowledgeable chemistry buffs who can chime in with more specifics, but I hope this helps.

 

[Megan]

I make GMS all the time and my bars are a cream color with no additives. The key to getting cream colored bars is to freeze your goat mix, use an ice bath and never allowing your solution to get above 70F. Yes it takes longer, but it's the first thing I start doing and in between adding in the lye, I am busy getting my hard oils melted and adding my soft oils, and measuring out my FO (I don't add colorants) and getting my mold(s) ready.

You can get a whiter bar, but you won't be able to use Olive Oil or any oil/butter with a 'yellow' hue to it...you can try lard, coconut oil and shea butter as a combination.

The only way to make soap with only goat milk is to separate the cream from the milk like you were making butter...though I have never heard of goat butter. Anyhoo...then it would be a matter of making some test batches using "Milk Fat, any bovine" as your starting point.

I would not put my soap in the sun to dry. I have no science to back up my opinion...just sounds like a bad idea.

The fat content, sugars and solids do affect your soap. If I use fresh from the goat milk I get speckles in my soap...which is okay since I don't color my GMS. You can avoid this by emulsifying your milk before freezing (or by buying it in the store). The sugar content is the reason why 1) the lye will burn the milk, 2) can cause the soap to overheat during saponification. You can mitigate this by freezing your milk and using an ice bath and refrigerating or freezing when the weather warms up. And the fat content adds to your superfat which leaves you with more unsaponified oils at the end. You can either lower your superfat or eliminate it all together.

My bars using 60% refined olive oil are very light colored...maybe not as white as a 100% coconut soap, but I would still consider white. They can very easy be whitened to bright white (which honestly, I think looks weird) with titanium dioxide.

 

[fillycate]

Thank you all so much for the information and feedback! I feel like a proud mother hen every time I look at this batch sitting in the mold. It definitely went through gel phase, which I wasn't sure it would do, since it never even got to trace before I poured it, and I am still so new and have a lot to learn.

Attached is a photo of the emulsified raw soap. The yellow tone is primarily due to the olive oil, since the milk never got above 50 degrees with the lye, and never above 82 in the batter, and that was because it was hot in the house. (I was working in an 80 degree house at the time with a fan blowing on me...)

TheGecko, I opted not to refrigerate/freeze this time, since it never got above room temp, and I naively thought it would continue to not get above room temp sitting in the mold. Imagine my surprise when I saw the very clear signs of advancing gel phase! (Honestly, it was kind of enchanting to witness.) I can't wait for my new stick blender and other materials to arrive so I can start playing and experimenting and tweaking variables. I will definitely try to stop gel phase in one of my future batches and see how it turns out.

I still admit to some powerful curiosity about sun curing, even if it is just for a few days and rotating the bars. If I experiment with it, I will let y'all know how it turns out in the short run and in the long run.

Goat milk is naturally homogenized. The cream does not rise to the top the way it does in unprocessed cow milk. It will very very slowly rise to the top, taking a week or more to show signs of cream gathering, but even then, only part of the cream is rising. Then you have to beat the hell out of it to separate the butterfat and buttermilk. It is a lot of effort for just a tiny bit of fat. I guess it is just not nearly enough to make soap on its own.

Here is the soap in the mold just now:

 

[Megan]

Looks great!

 

[fillycate]

 

[linne1gi]

Thank you all so much for the information and feedback! I feel like a proud mother hen every time I look at this batch sitting in the mold. It definitely went through gel phase, which I wasn't sure it would do, since it never even got to trace before I poured it, and I am still so new and have a lot to learn.

Attached is a photo of the emulsified raw soap. The yellow tone is primarily due to the olive oil, since the milk never got above 50 degrees with the lye, and never above 82 in the batter, and that was because it was hot in the house. (I was working in an 80 degree house at the time with a fan blowing on me...)View attachment 47691

TheGecko, I opted not to refrigerate/freeze this time, since it never got above room temp, and I naively thought it would continue to not get above room temp sitting in the mold. Imagine my surprise when I saw the very clear signs of advancing gel phase! (Honestly, it was kind of enchanting to witness.) I can't wait for my new stick blender and other materials to arrive so I can start playing and experimenting and tweaking variables. I will definitely try to stop gel phase in one of my future batches and see how it turns out.

I still admit to some powerful curiosity about sun curing, even if it is just for a few days and rotating the bars. If I experiment with it, I will let y'all know how it turns out in the short run and in the long run.

Goat milk is naturally homogenized. The cream does not rise to the top the way it does in unprocessed cow milk. It will very very slowly rise to the top, taking a week or more to show signs of cream gathering, but even then, only part of the cream is rising. Then you have to beat the hell out of it to separate the butterfat and buttermilk. It is a lot of effort for just a tiny bit of fat. I guess it is just not nearly enough to make soap on its own.

As the others have mentioned, sitting your soap in the sun will promote rancidity = DOS - dreaded orange spots. They may not happen right away, but they will happen sooner than if you had kept your soap out of the sun. Welcome to the obsession. I am still obsessed and over 8 years in. The other thing I would point out is not to use glass to mix your lye or even to mix your soap batter in. The lye etches the glass and over time weakens it - eventually causing the glass to shatter - causing a giant mess. Use either #5 Plastic or Stainless Steel. Some will say that #2 Plastic is also safe, but I have had it melt when I was making liquid soap, so I no longer suggest that.

 

[fillycate]

Thank you linnie1gi. I will relegate the glass to only oils.

I am seeing some white spots forming in the soap. Poop. I understand this is a danger with goat milk.

 

[linne1gi]

Thank you linnie1gi. I will relegate the glass to only oils.

I am seeing some white spots forming in the soap. Poop. I understand this is a danger with goat milk.

Glass is best left out completely - oils are slippery - a bummer when dropped on the floor! I have lots and lots of tile floors in my house (that's why I worry) and I have almost phased out all glass mixing bowls. Your white spots could be the goats milk which may have saponified a little too early, or they could be stearic spots. Or they could be air bubbles. You could try planing your bars - which leaves them with a nice smooth surface.

 

[fillycate]

Okay, no glass.

In the future I will stick blend the goat milk lye solution. This batch was small enough that I worried it would splash really badly, and now I don't have a working stick blender at all because it broke. I am so excited to make more soap, but I will hold off until my new stick blender arrives (store is all out, cause, you know, covid...)

 

[Hope Ann]

It looks pretty. Please post a pic of the cut!

I would also caution you on the goats milk lotion. It's very hard to properly preserve. I would advise a reading membership with Swift Crafty Monkey as her blogs are an excellent resource. There are a couple good FB forums and I know there is one here as well.

Hope

 

[fillycate]

Thank you, Hope Ann. I appreciate the advice and the nudge for where to learn more. I want to understand fully what I am up against and what is possible, as this is something I would really love to make work.

 

[AliOop]

Welcome!

Regarding sun-curing, I agree with the others that your soap is likely to go rancid if left in the sun. I've found this to be especially true with high-oleic recipes such as yours.

Also, people often confuse a soap that is "safe" with a soap that is "cured." Soap that is safe to use merely means that the soap has fully saponified, i.e., there is no more free lye, because it has all reacted with the oils to make soap. You can speed up that process by soaping hotter, doing hot process or oven process, gelling the soap, etc.

In contrast, there is no way to speed up "curing" because that involves more than just water evaporation. Curing time allows soap crystals to form, which in turn affect the quality and longevity of the finished soap. It generally takes about four weeks for these crystals to form, although some soaps benefit from significantly longer. Sure, your soap is safe to use before then, but certainly not ideal.

Regarding the stick-blender, only the more expensive blenders can be run for more than a few minutes at a time. The more typical SBs that you find at typical chain stores are only designed to run for a minute or so before letting them rest.

And except for a few soap-making techniques that call for continuous mechanical mixing (e.g., high-temp hot process), you don't need to blend continuously. Instead, you blend for a few seconds, whisk for a few seconds, blend, whisk. You can even let the soap sit for awhile and come back to it.

You also don't need to reach trace. CP soap makers who create intricate designs almost uniformly blend only to a stable emulsion, and almost never to trace. Watch some YouTube videos by Teri Endsley (Tree Marie Soapworks), or check out the Soap Challenge Club with Amy Warden. Once you learn how to spot a stable emulsion, you don't need to worry about reaching trace... or burning out more stick blenders.

 

[linne1gi]

Welcome!

Regarding sun-curing, I agree with the others that your soap is likely to go rancid if left in the sun. I've found this to be especially true with high-oleic recipes such as yours.

Also, people often confuse a soap that is "safe" with a soap that is "cured." Soap that is safe to use merely means that the soap has fully saponified, i.e., there is no more free lye, because it has all reacted with the oils to make soap. You can speed up that process by soaping hotter, doing hot process or oven process, gelling the soap, etc.

In contrast, there is no way to speed up "curing" because that involves more than just water evaporation. Curing time allows soap crystals to form, which in turn affect the quality and longevity of the finished soap. It generally takes about four weeks for these crystals to form, although some soaps benefit from significantly longer. Sure, your soap is safe to use before then, but certainly not ideal.

Regarding the stick-blender, only the more expensive blenders can be run for more than a few minutes at a time. The more typical SBs that you find at typical chain stores are only designed to run for a minute or so before letting them rest.

And except for a few soap-making techniques that call for continuous mechanical mixing (e.g., high-temp hot process), you don't need to blend continuously. Instead, you blend for a few seconds, whisk for a few seconds, blend, whisk. You can even let the soap sit for awhile and come back to it.

You also don't need to reach trace. CP soap makers who create intricate designs almost uniformly blend only to a stable emulsion, and almost never to trace. Watch some YouTube videos by Teri Endsley (Tree Marie Soapworks), or check out the Soap Challenge Club with Amy Warden. Once you learn how to spot a stable emulsion, you don't need to worry about reaching trace... or burning out more stick blenders.

Well said!

 

[fillycate]

Thank you, AliOop! Great information. I wish more recipes would talk about the danger of burning out the motor with too much continuous running. I see lots of recipes saying to do bursts, but not that that is part of the reason why. (Dammit, I always wanna know the why!!)

For example, knowing the "why" of sunlight leading to rancidity gave me the ability to Google that specific subject and learn more about it. Very much appreciated!

 

[GemstonePony]

Thank you, AliOop! Great information. I wish more recipes would talk about the danger of burning out the motor with too much continuous running. I see lots of recipes saying to do bursts, but not that that is part of the reason why. (Dammit, I always wanna know the why!!)

A few more reasons to stick blend sparingly:
- More blending= thicker trace, which can be harder to get air bubbles out of
- Saponification is a self-continuing process, you're really only using the stick blender to get the process going and then mix those molecules around so they can do the mixing for you, so to speak. If you're blending continually, it's harder to see if those molecules still need additional help or not.

A few additional reasons why you might use your stick blender a lot:
- You're not sure if it's emulsified, and reaching light trace is reassuring
- your recipe is ricing, generally due to a fragrance or essential oil.
- you need to reach a heavier trace and cannot wait.
- you are mixing a lot of different colors in quick succession.

Your stick-blender should say in the manual how long it's intended to work at a time(emphasis on should). I spent a lot of time looking through reviews to find one that can run a bit longer, since my soaping creativities are likely to run me into the last three reasons to stick-blend more.