Goat's milk turned orange when lye was added, then thickened, normal?

[ahauer88]

Hi all,

Came up with another question while I was trying to figure out what else was going on with my goat's milk batch, hope you don't mind me stopping by again.

I noticed that when I added the lye to the goat's milk and water mixture (I put in a 5 oz frozen chunk of condensed/canned goat's milk in 5 oz of chilled water and added the lye) it turned a disturbingly bright shade of orange and began to stink like ammonia. I have read that the ammonia smell is normal but some people were indicating that it turning orange could mean it scorched.

I kept an eye on it with my infrared thermometer and the mixture (apparently) never went over 130 degrees. That seems a bit low for it to have scorched? Just curious about it.

One more thing, I was doing this all out in my garage (cold this time of year, and hubby doesn't like me soaping in the house ), mixed the lye/goats milk/water together very well and left for a few minutes to go get my mixed oils from the kitchen. When I got back out to the garage and was going to mix the two together, to my surprise the lye/milk/water had turned to the consistency of thick custard. I had to scoop it into the oils. After stick blending it, it all seems to have incorporated together OK but it was a bit worrying at first. I'm assuming that's normal as well? (maybe a byproduct of the cold and the milk base?)

I took it out of the molds after freezing it then let it sit on a flat surface, it stinks... like a combination between a wet dog and rotten eggs! I'll try not to worry about it too much right now but I hope that's just a byproduct that will go away. This goat's milk stuff is turning into quite a saga but I hope the end product will be worth it.

Thank you all! I have learned so much from this forum. I don't know what I'd do without it.

 

[Obsidian]

The orange is from the sugars in the milk getting hot. If it didn't burn, it might not affect the soap color.

It thicken because the fats in the milk started to saponify, its completely normal. The stink should fade during cure.

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

As long as the orange parts didn't turn into hard orange blobs you should be ok. It's normal for goat milk lye solutions to thicken as they sit. It's the lye starting to convert the fats in the goat milk. I use milk, cow and goat, in almost every one of my soaps and I use 100% milk but I freeze it into cubes and then when I add the lye I stir it constantly until it melts. Once it's fully melted then the lye should be dissolved enough not to burn the sugars so I let it sit while I get my oils ready and it tends to get thick like custard. It blends just fine into the oils.