I've been making basic soap recipes for just over a year and I decided it was time to try something a little more advanced. I've always wanted to try making goat milk soap, but because the milk can easily scorch when mixed with the lye, it is considered a more advanced process, and, to be honest, I've been nervous about making an entire batch of soap and having it be ruined because I scorched the milk. The cold winter air, leading to dry, itchy skin, made it the perfect time to give this a try.
The first thing I did was to enter my recipe into soapcalc.net. This is such a great resource for any soap maker as it really helps you understand all of the ingredients that go into your soap and the characteristics of each of ingredients.
Here you can see the printout from SoapCalc with the recipe, including notes down at the bottom, particularly the use of frozen goat milk instead of water for this recipe. You can also see that I add sodium lactate to my soap. This increases the hardness of the bars. Typically, when making my soap, I like to pay particular attention to the Soap Bar Qualities of Conditioning and Creamy. (See how nicely SoapCalc figures all of this out for each recipe!) In feedback from customers, I've found that these are the qualities that they find important. The downside of keeping these qualities high, is that it can decrease the hardness of the bars. A harder bar lasts longer, so by adding sodium lactate, I can increase the hardness, without sacrificing the characteristics my customers enjoy.
This recipe requires a bit of preplanning as, to prevent the milk from being scorched, you can freeze it ahead of time. I weighed out the milk the night before and poured it into an ice cube tray. The next day, I weighed the cubes again, just in case a bit had been lost in the process, knowing that, as long as the majority of my milk was frozen, I could add a bit of liquid milk if needed.
I then added my lye to the frozen milk. As the lye reacts, the milk starts to melt. I continued to stir until all the cubes were melted and the lye was all incorporated into the milk. I wanted to make sure I didn't get any hot spots that might end up scorching the milk.
I kept an eye on the temperature throughout, knowing that I could place the mixture into a bowl of ice cubes if I needed to cool it further. In this case, I did not and the max temperature of my lye/milk mixture was in the lower 80s.
I set the lye/milk mixture aside and measured out my oils. For this recipe, I used a combination of apricot kernel oil, coconut oil, olive oil pomace, cocoa butter, and palm oil. (You can find the specific amounts on my SoapCalc printout.) If you want to substitute other oils into the recipe, you can add them in different amounts on SoapCalc and see how each oil affects the quality of you finished bar.
I use an old crock pot to mix my soaps. It is a nice sturdy container and the high sidewalls don't allow for much splatter. I would eventually like to get a large glass batter bowl with a spout, but it just keeps getting pushed to the back of the list as it is a want and not a need at this point.
First I poured my oils into the crockpot, then I added the lye/milk mixture. I mixed with a stick blender until I reached a light trace. In this recipe, I wanted to incorporate a feather design, so I wanted to make sure the batter was fluid enough to work with.
I then added a small portion of the batter to a separate container and added titanium dioxide to make that portion of the batter white.
I had previously prepared my mold and also the tool I would use to create my design. For this, I used a wire hanger that I bent to fit into my mold, and I placed a straw around the hanger so that it would have a bit more drag to it as I was moving it through the batter.
I started by pouring about half of the original batter into the mold. Then I added a strip of white down the middle. I topped it with a stipe of the original and continued this pattern unto my batter was gone. (I ended up with a bit too much white left over, so I used it to create a design on the top after I created the feather design.)
I used the hanger to swoop through the top half of the batter in the mold three to four times, and I finished by going down the middle and up one of the sides. I am always so anxious to cut my soap and see if the design turned out the way I envisioned!
With the extra white soap, I poured one more white stripe on top and used a skewer to create a bit of a pattern. I had not planned on doing this originally, but since my estimations were off and I had too much white left over, I think it worked out okay.
Because I used milk, I did not force this soap through gel and instead set it on the counter in my craft room for two days without an extra heat or insulation. It seemed to cure well. After two days, I cut the soap and was pleasantly surprised by the design. I'm not entirely sure I would say it looks like a feather, but it does have a soft look to it, which I fits the soft, conditioning nature of goat milk soap.
Kommentare