Separation when making goats milk soap

[rebekahp]

I'm ready to give up making GM soaps, this happens everytime. My soap traces, then starts to separate. I am left with a bowl of choc soap that needs rebatching with oily goop. What is going on?

Recipe includes:
Coconut oil
Palm Oil
Rice Bran Oil
Olive Oil
Castor Oil
Cocoa butter
Lindt choc
Goats milk
water
lye

 

[cwarren]

what %

 

[rebekahp]

what %

Great question, I work in grams.

340g coconut
227g palm
100g rice bran
100g olive
100g castor
40g cocoa butter
175g goats milk
142g lye
283g water
28g choc

I added the goats milk after I started mixing the lye & oils together, recipe from a book told me to do this. Separation occurs with a similar recipe when I add the GM after mixing.

 

[cwarren]

do you use a stick blender?

 

[rebekahp]

do you use a stick blender?

Sure do. I got a false trace but kept on stirring. When I stopped with the stick, the soap started separating, oil started seeping out.

 

[dagmar88]

I'd try to include the goatsmilk in your lye solution; either by mixing lye and water as you do now and adding the goatsmilk afterwards, or by mixing your lye and frozen goatsmilk (up to 100% as your liquid) directly.
Good luck!

 

[carebear]

Oh boy.

First off, I suggest learning to work in percentages becasue that way you will be able to adjust your batch size.

37.5% coconut oil
25.0% palm oil
11.0% rice bran oil
11.0% olive oil
11.0% castor oil
4.4% cocoa butter
(liquids and lye are calculated separately)

Second, even if I count the chocolate as cocoa butter (and thus one of your soaping oils) you have a zero percent superfat. Your milk will mitigate that a little, but I strongly suggest you cut the lye down. Use a lye calculator like on soapcalc.net.

Third, that is a LOT of liquid. Taking into account both the milk and the water, you are essentially using a 23.7% lye concentration. I'd cut the liquid too. Again, use a lye calculator and aim for about 28% lye concentration.

No matter what you are stirring with, you need to keep going until the oils and water don't separate. Perhaps cutting out some liquid will help - not sure. Are you soaping with warm oils and lye solution? if not, try going a bit warm.

 

[rebekahp]

Oh boy.

First off, I suggest learning to work in percentages becasue that way you will be able to adjust your batch size.

37.5% coconut oil
25.0% palm oil
11.0% rice bran oil
11.0% olive oil
11.0% castor oil
4.4% cocoa butter
(liquids and lye are calculated separately)

Second, even if I count the chocolate as cocoa butter (and thus one of your soaping oils) you have a zero percent superfat. Your milk will mitigate that a little, but I strongly suggest you cut the lye down. Use a lye calculator like on soapcalc.net.

Third, that is a LOT of liquid. Taking into account both the milk and the water, you are essentially using a 23.7% lye concentration. I'd cut the liquid too. Again, use a lye calculator and aim for about 28% lye concentration.

No matter what you are stirring with, you need to keep going until the oils and water don't separate. Perhaps cutting out some liquid will help - not sure. Are you soaping with warm oils and lye solution? if not, try going a bit warm.

Thanks for your advice. The above recipe is from The Handmade Soap Book by Melinda Coss. Apart from the cocoa butter, I haven't deviated from the recipe or directions.

I did keep mixing, it kept on separating. It got too thick for the stick to keep working, so I stirred by hand. No joy there.

My oils were warmer than the lye, however when making non-milk batches, I've never had this problem. The lye was around 50c & the oil was around 60c (don't know how to convert to F).

Sorry to ask a stupid question, how do I work with % when making soap? Do I total up the amount of oils & % out each one from the total?

I saved another milk batch earlier this week by rebatching, worked a treat! However the separation was more gel like when unmolding, so I don't know if I will have the same luck with this batch.

Will use soapcalc next, irrespective of the recie.

 

[glenolam]

Why don't you try getting more basic with GM soap. I only use olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, goat milk and lye and my soaps come out great.

I use frozen GM and put the chunks in a pot and add the lye to the chunks - be sure the GM is frozen if you do it this way, though, it will burn if it's too warm or slushy. Then you add this lye mix to the warmed oils and viola!

I can't recall the exact recipe, but I can get it later if you'd like.