Cold lye mixture

[Celestial1124]

I am pretty new to soap making, made a few batches a few years ago and decided to try again with a different recipe. My instructions say the oils should be 90-120 degrees, and the lye mixture should get to 90 degrees before adding oils. I made a small test batch (about 12 ounces) of goat milk soap, used an ice bath so the milk wouldn't get too hot (and frozen goat milk) but the temp of the lye and milk mixture never got above 60 degrees (even after taking off the ice) I wonder if it would have if I had waited longer (waited about 5 min) or if something in the recipe caused it not to get hot enough? After adding oils and bringing it to trace it was about 70 degrees. Will there be an issue with the safety of the soap? Recipe attached.

 

[AliOop]

Good job starting with a small batch as you are learning! As long as your lye dissolved completely, you should be fine. It is hard to get it dissolved and keep it dissolved below 65F, so next time I'd skip the ice bath.

As an aside, that will be a very "cleansing" soap due to the high amount of coconut oil. The term "cleansing" refers to how much it strips the oils off your skin, aka, dries out your skin. Consider dropping the CO to about 20%, and upping the lard to 46%. Then you can also drop your superfat to only 3%, since the recipe already has a high conditioning number. Higher superfat = more soap scum, more clogged pipes, etc.

One last thing: using the "lye concentration" setting instead of the default "water as percent of oils" will give you more consistent results with different batch sizes. Try 33% lye concentration next time - it's a great place for a beginner to start.

Hopefully I haven't overwhelmed you! It's great that you are soaping again; please share some pictures of your soaps when you can!

 

[Celestial1124]

Thank you! Hopefully the lye dissolved fully, I guess I will see

I was buying my gm soap from someone local, and I'm trying the recipe she uses (above), except I swapped out the Palm oil in her recipe for the lard I already had. She said to lower the super fat from 5% to 4% due to the high fat content of her goats milk. I might have to adjust it lower as soap scum and buildup is the reason I stopped soaping for a few years (didn't want to use chelators if possible, just find a good recipe with little buildup).

Thank you for the tip about the lye concentration, I really appreciate all the help!

 

[AliOop]

How awesome that you are making your own GM soap now, and how nice that your supplier gave you her recipe. I love that you are using lard instead of palm - I do the same because my skin likes it a lot better.

You can definitely lower the SF more when you lower the CO. The lard and GM are both very conditioning. I typically use 2-3% to cut down on soap scum, too. But I still get some scum with lard unless I used citric acid or sodium citrate. It's a fairly "natural" additive, and helps with preventing rancidity, too.

 

[Celestial1124]

Ah so the lard is the culprit. How much sodium citrate do you use? Do you add it to the lye mixture or oils?

 

[AliOop]

Ah so the lard is the culprit. How much sodium citrate do you use? Do you add it to the lye mixture or oils?

I use 1-2% sodium citrate, depending on whether I'm at 50% lard or 75-80% lard.

Since I use a 50-50 MB lye solution, I always need additional liquid, which is slightly warmed to help dissolve the SC and sorbitol (my sugar of choice for extra bubbles). Typically I will pour that into my pre-measured MB lye solution, and then immediately pour the combined solution into my oils to get the show on the road.

But you could pour the SC-sugar solution into your oils, and then add the lye solution. Either way works.

 

[Shelley D]

I agree with @aliabout skipping the ice bath, as the frozen goat's milk should be more than sufficient at keeping your lye solution temp low. I tried the ice bath with liquid milk first and it was too awkward mixing in a bowl that was sloshing around in an ice bath (I'm not the most graceful of creatures ) so I switched to using frozen milks and that works perfectly ~ almost zero fumes and lye temp keeps low, just the way I like it

 

[Branru Farm]

I have to disagree that just using frozen cubes is enough. It depends on the ambient temperature. I've made goat milk soap for many years and if the ambient temp is low, then just using cubes is enough, if not then I have to use an ice bath as well.

 

[Shelley D]

I have to disagree that just using frozen cubes is enough. It depends on the ambient temperature. I've made goat milk soap for many years and if the ambient temp is low, then just using cubes is enough, if not then I have to use an ice bath as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by ambient temperature. I live in Florida so it's always hot & humid, but I have the AC set at 73°F, and I haven't had any issues with my mixture getting too hot, in fact quite the opposite, my lye solution rarely gets above 90° so iced goat's milk (straight from freezer to mixing the lye solution, I don't let it sit out to thaw) works great for me. I do work in small batches though, usually around 1 pound, my biggest batch being 3 pounds, and because I had great expectations of making lots of soap, I bought a whole gallon of the blessed stuff
I have since thawed it, mixed in butter milk and an almond/coconut milk to make a 3 milk blend, then froze it all again and even with the rich buttermilk I haven't had any issues with overheating. I even experimented with the different lye calculations (ratio or %) and I really couldn't tell a difference in the finished product, but still no overheating.

 

[dmcgee5034]

I found this video from HSCG helpful showing frozen goat milk getting scorched. It was just slushy and not solid cubes when she starts. The second time, she uses an ice bath.
I always used an ice bath and frozen cubes, before I started just blending my GMP into some batch liquid.

 

[Shelley D]

I found this video from HSCG helpful showing frozen goat milk getting scorched. It was just slushy and not solid cubes when she starts. The second time, she uses an ice bath.
I always used an ice bath and frozen cubes, before I started just blending my GMP into some batch liquid.

Yes, I have seen videos of scorching and I noticed that she had her baggie setting out, and when she dumped it in the bowl it was more slush than frozen, hence the scorching.
When I do mine, I literally take fresh ice cubes and weight them into a bowl, then immediately add my lye (pre-weighed and ready to go) and start stirring. Mine is frozen solid, not slush because I don't want it to scorch, and can take a few minutes for the lye to fully dissolve. It is always that lovely creamy color too
I'm no expert, but I have made about a dozen batches this way and have never had scorching so I guess I'm lucky