How long for harmful lye fumes to go away

[kniquy]

I'm in the midst of making my first goat milk soap. I measured my water and added my GM powder to it and froze. When I added my lye I mixed, the goat milk did melt after a few minutes but the temp didn’t rise much. Usually it takes awhile to cool my lye so it always seemed to have plenty of time to cooland release any harmful fumes. Now I’m not sure when it is safe to start mixing with my oils as it seems the temp is around 50F.

I mixed outside and packed snow around it so that and the frozen milk could be why the temp never jumped up like usual.

 

[TheGecko]

You can use it as soon as the lye is dissolved. Fumes are released in the steam, using frozen liquids mitigate the fumes, though with milks you do get a bit of an amonia smell. 50F is too low and leads to false trace which leads to a grainy (BTDT) or even separated soap. I like my goat milk lye solution to be around 70-75F when mixing simple to keep the lye from scorching/burning the milk, but then I have to stick blend longer than I would with my regular soap recipe to make sure everything is fully emulsified and smooth. And since I don't color my GMS, I usually blend to a medium trace just to be sure.