Sodium citrate and milk?

[Shaylyn Valdez]

I am making goats milk soap. I add my goats milk to my oils. I am using water to dissolve my lye solution and usually I add my sodium citrate to some water that I took from the lye solution before I mixed it with lye and dissolve it in that but since I am using goats milk for the rest of the water I wasn't sure if I was able to dissolve the sodium citrate in that, or if I had to use some of the water portion for my sodium citrate solution and have even less goats milk in my soap. I want to use as much goats milk as possible, but I do not want to use it as a full water replacement because I dont like worrying about it scorching. I also wasnt sure if I could dissolve the sodium citrate in my lye water portion before I add the lye or if since its only going to be enough water to dissolve the lye that it might fall out of solution since it cant keep them both dissolved. I guess my ultimate question is.. can I dissolve my sodium citrate in my goats milk before adding to oils or will it get wonky?

 

[AliOop]

I don’t have much luck dissolving citrate in anything cold; I always have to warm my water a bit first.

So I see it more as a practical issue of having to warm a bit of the GM to get the sodium citrate to dissolve. Not sure you want to do that since you want the entire thing as cool as possible. But perhaps if you are using distilled water ice cubes for the lye solution, that could offset the small amount of warmed GM that is used to dissolve the citrate. You could also switch to using frozen GM for dissolving the lye solution.

 

[Shaylyn Valdez]

I don’t have much luck dissolving citrate in anything cold; I always have to warm my water a bit first.

So I see it more as a practical issue of having to warm a bit of the GM to get the sodium citrate to dissolve. Not sure you want to do that since you want the entire thing as cool as possible. But perhaps if you are using distilled water ice cubes for the lye solution, that could offset the small amount of warmed GM that is used to dissolve the citrate. You could also switch to using frozen GM for dissolving the lye solution.

I learned this the hard way. I tried it and had to warm my goats milk to get it dissolved and when I added the lye solution it scorched LOL. I will put the milk in the freezer to cool it off again next time before soaping because ooops.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I guess you are using sodium citrate powder? Have you considered using citric acid instead (maybe pre-dissolved as a 50% solution), and increase NaOH a bit (4 g NaOH per 7 g citric acid monohydrate) to offset the extra acid?

I've never put milk into soap, but I know sodium citrate is used in processed cheese manufacturing as “emulsifying salt” to prevent curdling/clumping. It might well be worth a try to add it to the GM.

 

[Shaylyn Valdez]

I guess you are using sodium citrate powder? Have you considered using citric acid instead (maybe pre-dissolved as a 50% solution), and increase NaOH a bit (4 g NaOH per 7 g citric acid monohydrate) to offset the extra acid?

I've never put milk into soap, but I know sodium citrate is used in processed cheese manufacturing as “emulsifying salt” to prevent curdling/clumping. It might well be worth a try to add it to the GM.

I dont think citric acid and milk would be a very good combo. I might end up with some cottage cheese soap LOL

 

[The_Phoenix]

I also use sodium citrate. I use aloe Vera juice that it stored in the fridge, so I weight out a little bit of the juice from the recipe, warm that in the microwave, add the SC, dissolve that, weight out the rest of my liquid, add the AVJ/SC solution, add my sorbitol, dissolve that, then add my lye solution.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I dont think citric acid and milk would be a very good combo. I might end up with some cottage cheese soap LOL

Sorry yes, I haven't explicitly stated that the citric acid MUST be added to the lye first, before touching milk.
But poor man's cottage cheese/mozzarella (with citric acid, yoghurt works too) is still a fine and fun thing to do – but that should happen deliberately, and not while in a hurry for making a huge batch of soap.