Newbie question and comment on "hand milled" term

[DeeAnna]

I'm afraid that being a curmudgeon, at least in US culture, mostly applies to men and it carries an aura of exasperated lovableness -- kind of like the main characters in Grumpy Old Men, with Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon. Unfortunately there's no term for women that implies the same grumpy but lovable qualities. B***h is the closest equivalent, but it's not a term of endearment.

Gent, I gladly cede the honors of being The Grumpy Pedant to you.

And anybody who dusts off their pasta roller and tries it with soap ... I want a full report! Please!!!

 

[kchaystack]

You know, I have a pasta roller that I use with Sculpey clay for making geocaheing swag.... hrm....

I'm afraid that being a curmudgeon, at least in US culture, mostly applies to men and it carries an aura of exasperated lovableness -- kind of like the main characters in Grumpy Old Men, with Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon. Unfortunately there's no term for women that implies the same grumpy but lovable qualities. B***h is the closest equivalent, but it's not a term of endearment.

Gent, I gladly cede the honors of being The Grumpy Pedant to you.

And anybody who dusts off their pasta roller and tries it with soap ... I want a full report! Please!!!

 

[IrishLass]

DeeAnna, reading your description I get a mental picture of running fresh soap through a pasta maker then rolling it out with a granite pin upon a piece of granite, then folding it and repeating umpteen times.

Just like laminating dough for croissants! Hmmm.....you know, I've got a pasta roller and that new, heavy, marble rolling pin that I bought the other day..........nah, nevermind. I have too much on my plate right now....like making more laugencroissants! And they are much more delicious than soap!


IrishLass

 

[Dorymae]

I agree, probably too much work, however I confess it did earn a place in the experiments notebook. Someday I will probably try it just to see how fine of a product I could create by hand. I copied DeeAnna's description in there so I won't forget!

 

[kchaystack]

So here is what I am thinking. Make a small batch of soap, and split it in 2 equal portions. Color these complementary colors. Then pour these onto baking sheets to make thin sheets of soap.

After they have set up some, cut this into ribbons, and then start feeding them thru the pasta machine, starting on the thickest setting and work it thinner and thinner. then stack the thinned soap in alternating colors, and run them thru several more times to fuse them.

Finally, take these and put them in some kind of mold, (maybe with a spritz of water between them?) and apply a lot of weight evenly again to fuse the pieces into a solid bar....

At least that is how I think we could come close to this at home. I have been looking for videos showing how the milling is done but all I get are rebatching vids. Boo!

 

[Dorymae]

I picture a wood covered slab mold, with the wood on the soap (maybe a layer of freezer paper between) with several C- clamps set evenly around. Then every 2-3 days give each clamp a half turn. Done slowly as the soap cures over several weeks I think it might give a sufficient amount of pressure, or at least as much as I could hope for! Okay, going to write this in the notebook- lmao, I wonder if I'll ever get to it!

 

[MountNView]

I'm so glad I found this discussion. I stayed at a hotel this past weekend that had French Milled Soap in the bathroom. I had not heard this term before so I had to research it. On the internet I found huge expensive machines used to mill soap, or I found youtube videos that showed rebatching so I was very confused. I will say that I've had to do 2 rebatches due to fragrance oils not being well mixed or something and I found the rebatch soap to be hard, creamy and long lasting.

I hope you will post the results of your experiment with the noodle/pasta maker so we can know how to really make milled soap at a hobby level. Sounds like a neat idea.