Goats milk question

[ilove2soap]

The goats milk soap recipe I have always used calls for canned evaporated goats milk added at trace. My brother-in-law has a friend that raises goats and brought me a gallon of fresh goats milk to use in my soaps. Can I just substitute the fresh in place of the evaporated (I always thought that evaporated was super-concentrated) in my old recipe? Should I formulate a new recipe using the frozen fresh goatsmilk and not try to add at trace? Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated. I would hate mess up and ruin my batch of soap.

 

[glenolam]

I only use frozen goats milk that I get from my doe; I don't use water in my soaps at all.

I take my goat milk and put it into ziplock bags (in 15 oz quantities since that's what most of my receipies call for) and freeze them. When I'm ready to make soap I wait until I'm ready to mix the lye then take a bag or two out of the freezer. I don't add the milk at trace, I put my frozen milk in my lye pot in a sink full of ice cubes, then pour the lye over the milk, stirring as I pour. Then I add my milk/lye combo to my oils and use the stick blender from there.

Using frozen milk helps to keep the lye from burning the milk, which turns up as bright orange chunks. The key to not burning your milk is to constantly stir and break up the milk as you pour the lye in and don't stop stirring until all the milk is blended with the lye. The temp of my lye/milk has never gotten above 100, but I'm still a newbie at this and I'm sure I'll have problems sooner or later!

I tried to cut a corner and put my lye measuring bowl away and ended up with a pot full of burned milk - it took all of 30 seconds for that to happen!

 

[Laurie]

Yes you can substitute the fresh for the canned.

I use goat's milk in my recipes (which I have to buy from store). :cry: I RTCP and so I add my goat milk to my oils and then add the lye mixture. I have been soaping for 7 years and I have never had a burned batch. But I have everything at room temp.

 

[soapsmurf]

Yes you can substitute the fresh for the canned.

I use goat's milk in my recipes (which I have to buy from store). :cry: I RTCP and so I add my goat milk to my oils and then add the lye mixture. I have been soaping for 7 years and I have never had a burned batch. But I have everything at room temp.

I do this as well. Adding the milk directly to the oils has caused no problems for me.

 

[Laurie]

I should say I always have my lye solution mixed up ahead of time. You know 50%lye - 50% water and/or aloe vera juice. So if you want a 100% goat milk bar then you would have to add goat milk powder to your goat milk. HTH

 

[Half Caper Farm]

I do the same as Glenolam - freeze fresh goat's milk in the necessary quantities and add the lye to that. It takes me about 5-10 minutes (depending on whether the milk is frozen hard, or just slushy) to incorporate all the lye into the frozen goat's milk, stirring constantly. The container is in a sink full of cold water and icepacks and I don't think I've ever gone over 100F either. The mixture will turn an interesting shade of custard yellow - that's normal!

Which reminds me - I now have milk coming out my ears, so time to make cheese and soap!