Lye water was like jelly??

tammy sue starks · Jun 27, 2020

Jersey Girl said:
You need to use at least 14.92 oz of water to make your lye solution as the lye weighs 14.92oz. It needs an equal amount of lye and water in order to dissolve. Then you would subtract 14.92 from 22..37 to get the amount of goats milk to add to your oils Which brings your total liquid to 22.37 oz

Hopefully I didn't mess it up, but added 100 grams of water since I was using a 40% lye solution. I will check that next though, thank you

Jersey Girl · Jun 27, 2020

tammy sue starks said:
Hopefully I didn't mess it up, but added 100 grams of water since I was using a 40% lye solution. I will check that next though, thank you

I think you’ll be fine, you definitely had some room to work adding water with a lye solution of 40%.

penelopejane · Jun 28, 2020

tammy sue starks said:
Hopefully I didn't mess it up, but added 100 grams of water since I was using a 40% lye solution. I will check that next though, thank you

Do you mean you added an extra 190g of water over and above the recipe water?
That’s a pretty big batch 3000g. Maybe with a new recipe you should try 500g batches.

tammy sue starks · Jun 28, 2020

penelopejane said:
Do you mean you added an extra 190g of water over and above the recipe water?
That’s a pretty big batch 3000g. Maybe with a new recipe you should try 500g batches.

I sell soap, and making that small of a batch every day would suck

TheGecko · Jun 28, 2020

sjeanine said:
I accidentally bought evaporated Goats milk instead of just goats milk so I split my water in half, using half to mix with the lye and the other half I threw out and used the evaporated goats milk. I Read somewhere on this form that that was how to do it if you had evaporated milk, however, when I went to use my lye water it was like a jelly substance... very thick! I went on and used it with my Oils But now I’m wondering if my soap is safe to use? I put my mold in the refrigerator overnight and cut it the next day. It appears a little dry and crumbly but not usually so. Any thoughts or advice on this? Thanks!

Using liquid goat milk, whether it's evaporated, from the dairy cases, or straight from the goat, needs a bit of extra work. But it's worth it to get that naturally creamy bar of soap.

When using Evaporated Goat Milk, mix the entire can with an equal amount of distilled water and freeze into either ice cubes or small blocks. If using store bought goat milk or fresh goat milk...freeze into ice cubes or blocks.

Weigh out your frozen GM the same as you would your water and then place in a larger bowl filled with regular ice, some water and a tablespoon or two of salt (the salt slows down the ice melting and keeps the water colder longer). Slowly add in small amounts of Sodium Hydroxide at a time and mix thoroughly, try not to let your lye solution get above 75F max. If it starts getting a little warm...let it rest and doing something else, like melting your hard oils, dispearsing your colorants, having a cup of coffee or a glass of ice tea. Milk has a lot of natural sugars and if it overheats it will scorch/burn and you will end up with tan soap.

And because of the fat in milk, the lye will immediate start to bind and start the saponification process so your lye solution will be thicker. It's okay...I left it sitting for 30-45 minutes, gave it a stir, dumped it into my oil and it blended up beautifully.