questions about milk soap

[jsanders]

If I make 50% lye water and add that to the goats milk for the other 50% will that help keep from heating up the milk? I am just so impatient!

AND

When you superfat by adding castor oil at trace how do you the calculation?

 

[carebear]

there are lots of ways to deal with milk - I suggest searching the forum.

regarding the superfat, unless you are HPing I suggest you just use soapcalc.net to calculate a lye discount (they call it superfat, but just add all your oils in at once anyway).

 

[soapbuddy]

I make a lye solution with minimum water required to dissolve the lye and add the rest as lukewarm milk as soon as the oils and lye water are combined. I don't gel.

There is no need to add any oils or butters at trace. The lye is still quite active at this point and it will take whatever it wants. Calculate all your oils and butters right up front, then do a superfat (also called lye discount).

 

[BrittanyJRW]

I think the most important thing is to keep your temps down. What I do is measure out & freeze my milk. Then when I'm ready I make an ice bath in the sink & that's where I put my lye mixing container & my milk container. I mix my lye, let it cool to 140 degrees (doesn't take but a couple minutes), then pour it into my milk container. And for your second question, you can add 1 Tbsp of castor oil PPO, but I just throw it in with the rest of my oils.

 

[IrishLass]

As Carebear said, there are lots of ways to deal with milk (and lots of threads on the subject, too!). I myself use the 'split method', which is the method that Soapbuddy explained in her post (only I gel mine). It works great. Since the milk is mixed in with the oils instead of directly with the lye or lye solution, it eliminates the potential for burnt milk, and best of all, my finished soap comes out a creamy off-white/ivory color, even when fully gelled (provided I didn't use a discoloring FO and/or honey).

Ditto what Carebear and Soapbuddy said about superfatting at trace. It's completely unnessesary even though a handful of soaping books written over the years have advocated it. Although the superfatting-at-trace idea seems to make sense, it's been shown to be a soaping myth- one of the many that still float around in soapdom. For a good resource on this subject and so much more, I highly recommend Dr. Kevin Dunn's book Scientific Soapmaking. Among other things, he discusses and shows through his experiments why it really makes no difference whether you superfat at trace or add all your oils up front. Since it makes no difference, why give yourself a headache trying to calculate how much oil to add at the end, you know?


IrishLass

 

[Traceyann]

Thanks girls for adding these lil tips , it really does make it easier and so rewarding to be able to have a go at something and not have it fail first go ....I have just made my first GM soap and so far so good ....