Goat Milk Recipe Recommendations?

[Shelley D]

Most of the recipes I stumble on, that feature Goat's Milk, always have the milk frozen. They either combine it with the sodium hydroxide in place of water, or add the frozen milk with the melted oils. I've only used this milk a few times and I've never frozen it and only added it to the oils. After curing a batch for a minimum of 4 weeks, I tried the bar and it was a very creamy soap. I was really happy with the result. Can anyone tell me what advantage freezing the milk has over not freezing it? I assume the high temperature will affect the quality of the milk but are there any other reasons?

I've made over a dozen batches of soap and I've never measured the respective oils and lye solution temps. Why is it important to do this? Does false trace have something to do with this (i.e. decreasing the likelihood of it occurring?)

Hello ~ I don't claim to be an expert but in my research of milk soap recipes I learned that a common problem is scorching of the milk when combined with lye, hence 3 possible solutions:
1) freeze your total weight of milk, then add your lye to the frozen milk, which will thaw the frozen milk and keep the lye temperature low (and also minimize the lye fumes). It takes a few minutes of alternately stirring and letting it sit for the lye to thoroughly dissolve and then it's ready to add to your melted oils.
2) Use an ice bath to control the temperature of the milk and lye solution while stirring. Personally, I find this awkward to set your lye solution bowl inside a bowl full of ice while stirring. It was literally the only time I experienced a lye splash because my bowl was moving around inside the other bowl, but to each their own
3) Adding the milk to the oils instead of the lye solution. For this option, the milk would only represent a portion of the liquid/water required for recipe, whereas in the 2 methods mentioned above it can represent the full amount of your liquid. For this method, you take your liquid required for the lye solution and subtract a portion, adding it as milk to your melted oils and mixing your lye solution with the remaining amount of water.
I hope this helps with understanding the different processes. Really, they are just ways to help minimize the potential for scorching, which can occur with any milk in a soap recipe, to my understanding.
Happy soaping

 

[2lilboots]

You could stick blend some powdered goats milk into your oils to make it equal a full goats milk.

 

[Dani13563]

I just made a batch with 220 g of lye and made a separate batch using sugar as well! I can’t wait to see the results

 

[noshawaii66]

Hi there, and welcome! First off, consider making 500g batches instead of 1600g. That way, you only have a few bars of something you may or may not like.

Second, when I plug your recipe into the soap calculator, I see four things:

1. Your super fat is 13.5% - and that's without accounting for the extra fat from your goat milk. That is super high, and almost certainly why the bar feels oily. All that unsaponified oil is going to create a lot of soap scum, and will probably clog your pipes, too. Consider reducing your superfat to 3%, or at the very most, 5%. This ties in to the next observation...

2. Your cleansing number is 17 due to the 25% CO. That's pretty high for someone who doesn't want to dry out her skin. Of course, if you live in a humid area, maybe you need a higher cleansing number. Just remember that "cleansing" really means "stripping the oil from your skin." Soap with a cleansing number of 0 will still clean you! And the lower the cleansing number, the less superfat you generally need to keep the bar from drying your skin.

3. Your recipe is pretty low in palmitic and stearic acids, both of which would make the soap harder and longer lasting. An easy fix would be to reduce the OO significantly and replace that with some lard, tallow, palm, soy wax, or a combination thereof.

4. Your FO is only 2.5% - that is going to be very lightly scented. Maybe that's what you are going for, but typically it takes more than that for the scent to stick around and be noticeable.

I hope that isn't discouraging to hear all of that! You can make a few tweaks and end up with something that you really like, maybe:

30% lard or palm oil (not palm kernel oil)
25% olive oil (considering using light instead of pomace so it doesn't trace so fast)
20% coconut oil
20% shea butter
5% castor

After plugging in those numbers to the soap calculator, do the following:

Set your batch size to 500g, which makes about four bars, or 750g for five to six bars.
Set your lye concentration to 33% (not water as percent of oils)
Set your superfat to 3%
Use your goat milk as full water replacement

Tip: to get more bubbles despite reducing your CO, dissolve 1 T sugar PPO in your goat milk before adding the lye solution. You won't see any change to the "bubbly" number in the soap calculator, but your soap will be more bubbly!

Have fun, and let us know what you end up trying!

Would this recipe work with Powdered Goats milk? If so how much would i need in tsp? My plan is to do the water to lye and just add the powder goats milk the the oil and blend well?
Any input would be appreciated..
NH66

 

[AliOop]

@Dani13563 how did the soap turn out?

@noshawaii66 sure, you can blend powdered GM into the oils. Just be sure to blend it very well so there are no streaks or lumps. Speaking from experience here.

 

[TheGecko]

My GMS Recipe:

41% Olive Oil
21% Coconut Oil
21% Palm Oil
12% Shea Butter
5% Castor Oil

1 Tea Sodium Lactate PPO
1 Tea Kaolin Clay PPO

33% Lye Concentration
5% Super Fat
6% FO

I freeze GM into cubes. I then prepare an ice batch with ice, water and a few tablespoons of salt and stick my bowl with the frozen cubes in the bath and let sit for five minutes so the bowl gets cold too. I then add my NaOH a bit at a time...not so little that I spend forever making my Lye Solution, but not so much that I can't control the temperature...which shouldn't go above 70F. Once all the NaOH has been dissolved, I weigh out my Master Batched Oils/Butters and toss in the microwave to melt to about 120F. While that is melting, I add Sodium Lactate to my Lye Solution, weigh out my FO and add the Clay to it.

The GM Lye Solution will thicken up, I just give it a quick whiz with my stick blender and then combine everything (I don't add colorants to my GMS as folks in my area prefer a plain GMS, and blend to about a medium trace and pour into my mold. NOW...if the temperature in my garage is UNDER 70F, I will put the mold there to saponify. If it is above 70F, then it gets lightly covered with a cotton cloth and put in the bottom shelf of my frig.

 

[linne1gi]

Would this recipe work with Powdered Goats milk? If so how much would i need in tsp? My plan is to do the water to lye and just add the powder goats milk the the oil and blend well?
Any input would be appreciated..
NH66

Usually it’s about a tablespoon of goats milk powder, per pound of oils but check your container, it’ll tell you how much to use.

 

[noshawaii66]

Usually it’s about a tablespoon of goats milk powder, per pound of oils but check your container, it’ll tell you how much to use.

Thanks linnegi.. Im going to try this ratio !