Finally got my goat!

[Guest]

Batch #12 and it's 100% goat!

Okay, that isn't burned, is it?

The picture is a sample bar of my GM soap I made yesterday. Unfortunately I left my kitchen just before the pour to check that there was room for the mold in my junk room, and when I returned no more than 60 seconds later the batch had already started to seize. Evidently the FO (WSP ocean rain) had accelerated the trace but didn't actually show it until just after I left. I hastily poured the batter into the mold and thought I would be okay. It still looked okay when I unmolded it but when I started to cut it I noticed that the slices were bleeding oil. Further investigation revealed that the ooze was FO, so it appears that my FO hadn't been fully incorporated when it started to seize. I've rebatched it in my crock pot and it appears to be going well but I won't know until I unmold and cut it again. (It's in the fridge right now.)

Here's how I did it:

I normally mix my lye to 30% concentration. In my GM batch this came out to 16 oz water and 7 oz lye. I poured 8 oz fresh GM into a measuring cup. To this I added 1 oz of GM powder, then hit it with my SB until all the lumps had disappeared. Note that you can mix GM powder with water in a 1:8 ratio by weight to reconstitute GM from GMP. That means that the 8 oz milk is now double strength GM.

Measure the other 8 oz water into your lye mixing container and add only half of your lye and keep stirring until the cloudiness disappears and the mixture becomes clear. Warning: Do not add the full amount of lye at this time or you will have constructed a lye bomb, not a good thing to have in your kitchen!!! When the lye mixture has cooled to room temperature start adding lye a bit at a time while continuously stirring, and stop adding it anytime you see powder remaining in the liquid. Slowly continue until you have incorporated all the lye into the lye-water mixture.

Be very careful with your lye mixture because it is double-strength and extremely strong, probably stronger than any experienced soaper would want to work with, but you know that fools rush in where wise men fear to tread. I wasn't even sure you could make a 60% lye mixture without it precipitating, but I discovered that you can.

Let your lye mixture cool to your desired temperature and adjust your fats to the same temperature. Place your concentrated GM near your soaping pot, then very carefully but quickly add the lye mixture to the fats while continuously stirring with a spoon, then immediately add the concentrated GM too, and then as quickly as possible hit it with your SB until the batch is completely homogenized.

I noticed only the slightest mixing problem that disappeared within 10 seconds of hitting it with my stick. The hugely concentrated lye mixture seemed to work fine and I had absolutely no problem completing the blending to trace although my FO greatly accelerated my batch and I had to work quickly getting it into the mold. When it came out of the mold I was surprised by the light apricot color which I partially attribute to base oils (OO is the biggest component) and to the FO. Never once did I smell any ammonia, and the light color indicates that I didn't burn the milk. In fact at least half the color darkening occurred during gel, and although I don't like no-gel soap you no-gellers could probably get a lighter color if you pop your goat into the fridge right after molding.

So there's how I got my 100% goat with no burning and no ammonia. I wouldn't be so brash as to tell anybody to make their GM soap my way but it worked perfectly for me the first time out, and I'm going to make it this way every time! 8)

I'll post pics of the rebatched bars if they look okay. Got goat?

 

[SoapyGal]

:shock:

Oh -- ow.... that made my head hurt..... I'm going to go take a couple of Excedrin, then come back a little later & try reading it again....

.... wow.... and I thought I got lost over how to post pictures in my threads!

<shuffles off to the medicine cabinet...>

 

[Guest]

It is not my original idea and my only contribution was to write it up in a simple, straight forward, easy to read manner so that almost anybody... um... could understand.

Actually I got the idea from Irish Lass in another thread here at SMF:

For my usual GM soap, I use 1/3 of my total liquid amount as GM, but when I want to make a 100% GM soap, I do the same exact thing as above, but with a twist. The twist is that directly to my 1/3 amount of fresh GM, I stir in 1 tablespoon of powdered GM for every 2 ounces of the water or aloe juice amount that I had mixed beforehand with the lye in another container. This makes a 100% GM dilution when all is said and done, and the beauty of it is that none of my lye ever hit any of my bare-naked GM in a direct manner, which givies me a nice, creamy off-white GM soap every time, even when it gels. WoHoo!

She used 1/3 milk and 2/3 lye water while I used half and half, but it's the same idea. I wanted to have a lot of fresh, real goat's milk in my bars without ammonia or burning, and I accomplished that. I can only wonder what the experienced soapers must think of my 60% lye solution!

 

[Guest]

Happy to report that I just washed my hands using a runt bar from the rebatch, and the soap qualities are unchanged but now the FO is completely integrated and there is no more bleed. The color is one shade darker, a reminder to me to watch my fats closer when they are near to trace.

I got goat and it's nice soap!

 

[SoapyGal]

Greg, I'm going to print this off & read it tomorrow.... We've been having the tornado sirens going off all night, so I'm a bit on the squirrely side!! Finding it hard to concentrate when I have to keep jumping up & hauling my fanny down to the basement and pray I don't end up like Dorothy & Toto!!! So frustrating when one is trying to learn soapy stuff!! Sheesh!

But -- let me at least say that I'm very happy for you that this turned out so well.

Sounds like you've really hit on a great method

 

[Guest]

Did you use raw, canned, or powdered milk?

 

[Guest]

Did you use raw, canned, or powdered milk?

I used fresh GM for half of the recipe's liquid, and then used GM powder to increase the concentration of that GM to double strength.

The powdered GM makes up for the water used to mix the lye solution. It's the same amount of GM powder that would have been used to reconstitute the lye water, but by mixing the powder into the milk you avoid any goat coming into contact with your lye until after the lye has been diluted into the oils.

Since the GM and GM powder never come in contact with the concentrated lye solution there is never any chance of the lye burning the milk, so you end up with an unburned GM bar made with 50% fresh GM and 50% GM powder, arguably a 100% GM bar.

Possible alternate method: I would like to try is to use 100% fresh GM and mix in the lye, but mix in the lye a bit at a time over a period of 30-60 minutes, never putting in enough at one time to significantly raise the temperature and always waiting between additions for the temperature to cool off. Possibly an ice bath would also be used, but it's important to never add so much lye at one time that the liquid temperature would rise more than a few degrees. I think this method too would work, although it does expose the milk to chemical reaction with the lye. I don't know how significant the chemical reaction would be.

 

[Guest]

I freeze the milk solid and sprinkle the lye on top a little at a time. It takes about 10 minutes and makes a creamy color. Sometimes, if I pour too much lye in or don't have the milk frozen enough it will turn yellow and make a darker colored bar. If you have access to a goat farm, you could experiment using colostrum to add extra nutrients to the bar. Seriously though, when a goat gives birth to one kid and freshens (comes into milk) with a gallon of colostrum, theres no way that sucker will drink all that so, I make soap with it!

 

[SoapyGal]

I used fresh GM for half of the recipe's liquid, and then used GM powder to increase the concentration of that GM to double strength.

The powdered GM makes up for the water used to mix the lye solution. It's the same amount of GM powder that would have been used to reconstitute the lye water, but by mixing the powder into the milk you avoid any goat coming into contact with your lye until after the lye has been diluted into the oils.

Since the GM and GM powder never come in contact with the concentrated lye solution there is never any chance of the lye burning the milk, so you end up with an unburned GM bar made with 50% fresh GM and 50% GM powder, arguably a 100% GM bar.

Possible alternate method: I would like to try is to use 100% fresh GM and mix in the lye, but mix in the lye a bit at a time over a period of 30-60 minutes, never putting in enough at one time to significantly raise the temperature and always waiting between additions for the temperature to cool off. Possibly an ice bath would also be used, but it's important to never add so much lye at one time that the liquid temperature would rise more than a few degrees. I think this method too would work, although it does expose the milk to chemical reaction with the lye. I don't know how significant the chemical reaction would be.

I get it today. Amazing what a little sleep will do for you.

This is an ingenious idea!! I think I will try it this way when I get around to it.

Thanks for thinking this one through so well, and thanks to Irish Lass, also, who was the inspiration for this idea!!


La 'O ~ you must have so much fun with all your goats!! I just love them. My daughter volunteers at the zoo in the summer, and last summer got to spend alot of time with the brand new baby goats, and really bonded with them. They're just too cute for words. If I had the property & the energy to take care of them, I'd get a whole bunch of them in a heart beat!!!

 

[kwahlne]

Greg, you are making me want to try doing a goats milk bar...!

 

[Guest]

Well Kristin you've got both me and Paul saying the same thing. Maybe there's a good reason for that.

I studied various methods of making GM for weeks before I developed the method described above. As I said, I make no claim for origination other than the detail in my instructions.

I suggest you read up too, and if you like my way then try it. It avoids tossing the GM into the lye, but there is the problem that you are working with lye more concentrated than most soapmaking involves so you must be very careful and very quick when you add the lye and GM to your oils.

I think it's a good method, a good recipe, and I'm going to make the same recipe next time except I might try some additives.

I hope I can encourage you to try your own goat. If you want to try my method locate a source of fresh GM and buy some GM powder. I got mine at WSP.

BTW thanks to Dee at WSP customer service for tracking down the 1:8 recipe on how to reconstitute GM powder into GM. She called their distributor for me and asked them how to reconstitute. I was the first person ever to ask WSP how to make the powder into milk. They said at first that it couldn't be done.