Ok I’m back…….
All I ever use for goat’s milk is condensed evaporated goats milk in the tin. And I like it because it’s evaporated because I find that a huge bonus.
Yes you need to mix equal parts GM concentrate to a liquid. I did use to use water, however Paul turned me to using aloe vera juice. It can be found in your local wal-mart in with the laxatives on the bottom shelf in a gallon jug. And why not pack as much punch as you can with your soaps so out with the water and in with the aloe vera juice. And I use the aloe juice in place of the water.
I do wish that lye calculators would say liquid instead of water because there are so many choices to use as a liquid. From Goats Milk, cow’s milk in the form of skim, 2%, whole milk, buttermilk, and heavy cream. But another personal favorite of mine is tomato juice. So be creative as well.
Anywho, now consider this for example, say your recipe calls for 13.69 ounces of water. Divided by 2 is 6.845 ounces of GM and whatever other liquid you want to use. Or to make the most of your GM in the tin you can use 6 ounces of GM and 7.69 ounces of other liquid.
Because I don’t want to have to deal with freezing my milk so it doesn’t burn this is what I do. Also Paul suggested adding the goat's milk at trace instead of earlier in the process.
I take my ‘other liquid’ and in my case the aloe vera juice and I mix that with my lye and let it cool completely. Even making it up the day before if needed.
Then I take my oils and put them in a large tall plastic container. And I use my stick blender and blend them together. Sorta like creaming the butter and sugar together when making cookies. If you use a harder butter like mango butter or cocoa butter you may want to heat that slightly my weighing it separate and popping it into the microwave until it’s melted or softened up. Also if you add any beeswax or stearic acid this also applies. But I’d add just a little bit of my other oils to them just to melt them. Oh and don’t forget to weigh all your oils together in the same container and keep a running tally of the totals starting with the weight of the container.
Then once your oils are creamed, add in your lye/liquid mixture when it’s fully cooled and is room temperature. And use your stick blender and blend well until you have trace. Once you have trace you can pour in your concentrated Goats milk. Continue to blend till you have the trace you desire. Since my stick blender has different attachments it’s at this point that I swap out to use the whip attachment. And I pour in my premeasured fragrance oil and use that whip attachment to mix it in well. And then pour into my molds.
If you go to the tutorials section you will find my tutorial on how to line your mold with paper, and you will also see my super uber fancy mold.
But above all don’t forget to have fun !!!!