Milk vs water

[Rebelshope]

If I want to make milk soap, can I just exchange the milk for the water in a recipe?

 

[kwahlne]

Yes, that's how you can determine the amount. However, you should be careful about burning the milk when the lye hits it. Some people use frozen milk, others add the lye so slowly that it does not reach a high enough temperature to burn.

 

[Annmarie0407]

I was adding my Goats milk to the lye and water mixture and my goat milk was burning. So, now I add the goat milk to the oils when I add the lye /water mixture and its working out wonderful.

 

[Mothi]

I love goat's milk soaps... It has been a year since I made some, but I used cold aloe juice with lye then added chilled goats milk to the mix. I found it helps with preventing milk from burning.

 

[Soapmaker Man]

I wait until very light trace, then slowly add RT GM to the batter. I use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer now too...love it! At that point, some of the lye has been used up by the oils and saponification, leaving less lye to "burn" the sugars in the goat milk.

Paul :wink:

 

[Rebelshope]

I have made some goats milk soap. The way I was told to do it was to chill the milk and have it in a water bath with ice. Then to slowly add the lye to the milk and make sure the temp was always between 90 and 100. I didn't get a burn. That was my first attempt but I wanted to try some difference recipes and didn't know if I could just substitute the milk for water.

 

[bassgirl]

I wait until very light trace, then slowly add RT GM to the batter. I use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer now too...love it! At that point, some of the lye has been used up by the oils and saponification, leaving less lye to "burn" the sugars in the goat milk.

Paul :wink:

So do you reduce the amount of water you mix with the lye proportionally, to make up for the extra liquid milk?

 

[Soapmaker Man]

Yup, I strt out with a 50% solution strength, and add the RT goat milk, with a bit of powdered GM, to the lightly traced batter to reduce the solution strength overall to about 30 to 35%, my preference solution strength. By adding the powdered GM to the whole GM, I make up the difference of the aloe vera juice I use to make my pre-made 50% solution....still having a 100% goat milk soap. It would be like adding aloe vera powder to al all liquid GM recipe; I just change it aound a bit. I have ben doing it this way almost 2 years now and it works fantastic!
Paul

 

[robindeb]

Hi Paul, I am a newbie to this board and fairly new to soap making about 9 months now. I finally found a farm that will sell me GM. So this past weekend I got my books out and followed instructions carefully(I thought) and both batches seized on me, first time ever this has happended. I paid carefull attention to the temp of the lye water and did as you stated above and added my cold-not RT- GM at light trace. At first I thought it was my FO but the second batch I used an EO blend. What I ddin't do is test the temp of my oils. I am going to try again this weekend, I will take your advice on RT GM but also should I have the oils the same temp as the lye water?

P.S. I am also going to your RT batch bucket method as soon as I get my new supply of oils in. What size batch fits well in the kitchen aid mixer bowl? I would imagine you do small batches whip it up and then put it in your large container. Correct? You are my hero. I tell my husband about you all the time. You have a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for sharing with us newbies.

 

[Rebelshope]

Well I made my second batch today of milk soap. Like I said use it as my liquid. I do watch the temps very well though. Milk and lye not to go about 100 or below 80. I did have to cool my oils down, they just did not want to come down at first, but I got them down to around 100 also. So far it looks like a really nice batch, only I used red palm oil because I got it at a discount and all my soap is orange. Trust me this is not from burnt milk the oil was orange! . . . I think I am going to use the rest of it to make a pumpkin soap.

 

[robindeb]

I wish I could say the same I am getting so frustrated. I made my 3rd batch of GM soap yesterday and I watched the temps so carefully. Had the GM at at around 72, the oils were around 76 and the lye water after many hours was finally down around 90 so I decided to mix it up. Pudding again. I barely got to a light trace and stopped using the stick blender then separated two small batched(at this point still very pourable)added my colors to all 3, (trying to swirl in a slab mold) mixed in the FO all by hand with minimal stirring with a whisk (maybe 3-4 stirs) Pudding....So I globbed it int he mold attmpted to make some kind of pattern with it...impossible. Covered it and checked it 2 hours later and it was soupy and hot. Maybe I should have left it in the globs and swirled it later. This morning it is set up and hard, one color though not bad a peachy color, but there is oil on top. I tested the oil with Pheno and it did not turn pink. Thoughts comments please? I was so excited to finally find fresh raw goat's milk I am not going to let this beat me.

 

[soaper1218]

Goats Milk Soap

I have always chilled the goats milk down to where it is almost frozen and then stirred in the lye. I pour it slowly into the oils as soon as possible versus letting it sit too long and heat up. I like the guys idea of pouring the milk into the oil but it seems like that would throw off the lye/water mix.

Steve
www.colebrothers.com/soap