This is experimental batch number two. My mom was looking for a bar of chocolate peppermint soap, so after a relatively successful first attempt at making cold process soap, I decided to tweak a recipe and make goat tallow milk chocolate peppermint soap for her. I read that you can substitute tallow for palm oil, so I did, using lye and fragrance calculators.
My recipe ended up being:
32% olive oil (10.2 oz)
32% coconut oil (10.2 oz)
32% got tallow (10.2 oz)
4% castor oil (1.3 oz)
Lye, 4.6 oz
Liquid, 10.3 oz
I further divided the liquid into 7.3 oz distilled water which I dissolved the lye into, and 3 oz of fresh goat milk that I added to the oils.
Peppermint essential oil, 1 oz
Cocoa powder, 2 tsp
My difficulties started well before I began blending the batter. Everything I had learned about goat milk soap stressed that keeping the temperature very low is crucial to keeping the milk from scorching. I aimed to cool the lye and oils to under 80°F before mixing them. The tallow started to solidify around 115° and by 110° the whole bowl of oils got thick as pudding. I finally decided I'd have to go with it, added the 3 oz of cold liquid goat milk, stick blended it into the quickly solidifying oils and poured in the lye water. By the time the lye went in, the oils were already like a thick pudding and I had to use a spatula to scrape bits of solid tallow off the sides of the bowl. I stirred and blended it in, added the peppermint EO, mixed that in and spooned a little of the white batter into a separate container. Then I mixed in the 2 tsp of cocoa powder (which I had blended into about 1 oz of the olive oil from my recipe) into the big portion of batter. Talk about THICK! It was so thick that when I tried pulsing the stick blender it didn't slurp the batter into the blades. So I just stirred it in with the blender turned off and glopped it into the mold. Then I spooned the reserved white batter down the middle and scoop/swirled it with the spoon like I had seen on YouTube, mounded it up and stuck it outside the back door under the patio roof in the western Montana winter temperature.
I was so sure that batch would be a big old flop that I didn't even step outside to look at it every half hour for the next two days! I brought it inside for a day to stabilize the temperature before unmolding and cutting it. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did it appear to be soap, but that it also smelled good, had very few air pockets in the loaf. It even looked pretty close to what I was aiming for! I did get a partial gel phase, and the outside of the bars are much lighter in color than the inside. Is that just what cocoa powder does, or is there a way to prevent that? I think it looks neat, but I don't know if it's supposed to do that.
I mainly want to know if anyone has experience making goat milk and goat tallow soap? How do I keep the temperatures low enough to not scorch the milk and high enough to keep the tallow from solidifying?
When I rinsed my gloves after cutting I couldn't believe how much lather there was and how creamy it felt, even through the gloves! I feel like the goat tallow probably contributed to that more than the goat milk did, but whatever it was, I like it!
First picture was when I cut it on day 3, next two pictures were just taken today, almost 2 weeks into the cure.
My recipe ended up being:
32% olive oil (10.2 oz)
32% coconut oil (10.2 oz)
32% got tallow (10.2 oz)
4% castor oil (1.3 oz)
Lye, 4.6 oz
Liquid, 10.3 oz
I further divided the liquid into 7.3 oz distilled water which I dissolved the lye into, and 3 oz of fresh goat milk that I added to the oils.
Peppermint essential oil, 1 oz
Cocoa powder, 2 tsp
My difficulties started well before I began blending the batter. Everything I had learned about goat milk soap stressed that keeping the temperature very low is crucial to keeping the milk from scorching. I aimed to cool the lye and oils to under 80°F before mixing them. The tallow started to solidify around 115° and by 110° the whole bowl of oils got thick as pudding. I finally decided I'd have to go with it, added the 3 oz of cold liquid goat milk, stick blended it into the quickly solidifying oils and poured in the lye water. By the time the lye went in, the oils were already like a thick pudding and I had to use a spatula to scrape bits of solid tallow off the sides of the bowl. I stirred and blended it in, added the peppermint EO, mixed that in and spooned a little of the white batter into a separate container. Then I mixed in the 2 tsp of cocoa powder (which I had blended into about 1 oz of the olive oil from my recipe) into the big portion of batter. Talk about THICK! It was so thick that when I tried pulsing the stick blender it didn't slurp the batter into the blades. So I just stirred it in with the blender turned off and glopped it into the mold. Then I spooned the reserved white batter down the middle and scoop/swirled it with the spoon like I had seen on YouTube, mounded it up and stuck it outside the back door under the patio roof in the western Montana winter temperature.
I was so sure that batch would be a big old flop that I didn't even step outside to look at it every half hour for the next two days! I brought it inside for a day to stabilize the temperature before unmolding and cutting it. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did it appear to be soap, but that it also smelled good, had very few air pockets in the loaf. It even looked pretty close to what I was aiming for! I did get a partial gel phase, and the outside of the bars are much lighter in color than the inside. Is that just what cocoa powder does, or is there a way to prevent that? I think it looks neat, but I don't know if it's supposed to do that.
I mainly want to know if anyone has experience making goat milk and goat tallow soap? How do I keep the temperatures low enough to not scorch the milk and high enough to keep the tallow from solidifying?
When I rinsed my gloves after cutting I couldn't believe how much lather there was and how creamy it felt, even through the gloves! I feel like the goat tallow probably contributed to that more than the goat milk did, but whatever it was, I like it!
First picture was when I cut it on day 3, next two pictures were just taken today, almost 2 weeks into the cure.
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I soap with GM as 50% of my liquid all the time. I use it straight out of the fridge and even when the oils are hotter I rarely have a problem. I do usually soap at about 90-100* but I also don’t use tallow, yet….
