Goat milk question

[joyofsoap]

Hi Everyone,
I have been making soap for many years and have decided to start making goat milk soap. Here are some questions that I hope some seasoned goat milk soapers can answer.
I have used the Summer Bee Calculator and am wondering if I should use the "Goat Milk Butter Fat" amount as the amount of goat milk I should use to dissolve the lye and is the lye amount correct? I made a batch yesterday and the lye just would not dissolve. So...will it continue to "dissolve" in the mixing? Is goat milk different than water when it comes to dissolving the lye? Any suggestions or answers? I know all the techniques of using cold milk, etc. It's just getting the darn lye to go away!!!

Please help if you can.

Thank you in advance.

 

[lsg]

If you are having trouble getting the lye to dissolve in goat's milk, you might try using water as 2/3 of the liquid and cream as the other 1/3. You can dissolve the lye in water and add the cream to the soap mixture at thin trace.

 

[joyofsoap]

This was not my first batch. I have made a few others using water to dissolve the lye. And I have used only goat milk to dissolve the lye. I found that using only goat milk made the soap much creamier. This last time I used more lye, because I felt the soap was too overfatted. So....maybe I just stick with less lye and more superfat? How does everyone else do this? What am I missing?

 

[tryanything]

I will generally lower my superfat from my standard 7% to 5% when using milk since it is creamier. Not sure why you are having trouble dissolving the lye. I generally use frozen milk. It does take a bit longer for the lye to melt the milk and dissolve but I've not had it not melt. I just made five milk batches over the last five days.

 

[joyofsoap]

I am assuming it is lye. The milk is very gritty and seems to be thicker.

 

[dagmar88]

I am assuming it is lye. The milk is very gritty and seems to be thicker.

;-) The fats in the milk are simply saponifying.

"Goat milk butter fat" does not equal goats milk. If you want to be exact, you could determine the milk fat content and include that with your oils and butters.
But like tryanything said, it's easier to just slightly lower your superfat or don't change anything at all.

 

[joyofsoap]

Thanks for the help

 

[ca_soap]

Or to make it simple, use powdered goats milk. I figure the amount of powder recommended for the amount of water in my lye mixture then add that powder to my oils with a stick blender before adding the lye/water mixture then proceed as normal. I use a recipe of olive oil, lard, coconut oil for my oils and the result is fabulous and so very simple to make.

 

[joyofsoap]

I have lots of fresh goat milk, so that's what I use

 

[yadonm]

Are you adding a little lye at a time? That's what I do to keep the temp down and it seems to help dissolve the lye better.


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