Goat milk lye and gelling

[sistrum]

This was in another post but I thought I would give it its own to avoid a total high jack.


I think the problem with goat milk turning orange is not the heat but how fast you add the lye and the quick change in PH. After all when you boil milk on the stove it doesn't go orange and that's a lot hotter than my lye gets. When you add lye to frozen milk its getting into solution at a little bit at a time so the PH is changing slowly.

Here is fresh (as in just milked) with lye added slowly. 33% lye solution

 

[sistrum]

And because I can't seem to attach more than one picture at a time, here is frozen GM with lye added.

Notice the bits of milk soap in it

 

[sistrum]

And last gelled vs not jelled



The muffin one is not gelled. These were taken about 5 hours after pouring.

So, what do you think?

 

[TVivian]

They both look great and neither looks brown/orange or burnt! I think you're right, it has more to to with the chemical reaction than the heat.


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[Twiggy]

Isn’t that the lye reacting with sugars in milk, so that’s why the discoloration appears? I think here is a different heat type than when you heat the milk on the stove, the temperature from chemical reaction is increases SO fast, that is actually kind of burning the milk a little, like scalding it.

I think that both soaps are beautiful!

 

[sistrum]

So far I've tried every way I can think of to heat up milk and make it turn orange and get that smell that comes from adding lye to fast but just can't seem to make it happen. If anyone knows a way let me know, meanwhile I will keep testing.

 

[TVivian]

Another example is tea. We heat the water to boiling and drop in the bag. No matter how hot the water gets, the tea steeps a nice, clear good smelling liquid. I've had no luck adding lye to steeped, cooled green tea. It burns, smells terrible and I won't even use the mixture. It's definitely not the heat causing that.


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[savonierre]

Both soaps are beautiful..

 

[kazmi]

Sistrum, in the other thread you mentioned that it took about 15-20 min approx to slowly add the lye. Did you ice the GM at all in a ice water bath to keep it cool? Also I'd love to see how your (gorgeous!) soap looks in a couple of weeks to see if the color changes at all. Each gm soap that I've made I've used scents that colored it so I don't know if mine would be light but I'm interested in knowing if yours stay creamy white.

 

[sistrum]

The frozen one was frozen solid in the container and I just sprinkled the lye on top ( no ice cube trays at my house) The fresh one was just in the pitcher I poured it in after milking. I just sat outside and added the lye bit by bit. I will post the soap update pictures again in a couple of weeks.

 

[TeriDk]

When my GM soap gelled, it turned dark brown and I had it in a cold room on the window sill with the window open. How did you do it?

 

[sistrum]

This was gelled in the oven but I do HP goat milk also and it has never turned dark brown. When I use olive oil it's the grade A kind which is a golden color and turns very white in soaps. Maybe that's part of it? I also pull my soap out of the oven as soon as it reaches a full gel and put it on a raised cooling rack to cool. I do think quick cooling affects the texture but haven't noticed any color change. Could it have been the FO? Sorry not much help. Was it very dark to start out?