# Goat Milk Soap?



## ctimlin (Sep 3, 2013)

Looking for recipes that are tried and true - basics - goat milk, lye, and lard or tallow with essential oils for scent and natural colors (beets, etc).

Any links besides the obvious ones at Hoeger and BrambleBerry?


----------



## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

Soap companion book is awesome...


----------



## kc8lsk (Jan 10, 2014)

I've got a lot of these off the internet

Basic Goat Milk and Honey Soap #2

13 cups lard or rendered fat (6.5 pounds)
1 can caustic soda
1/2 cup honey
4 cups goat milk
1 cup hot water

Into a large stainless steel or enamel container, dissolve the honey into the hot water. Add the 4 cups goat milk, stir to mix well and slowly add the lye to the milk/honey mixture. This will get very hot. Let it set until it cools down to 75 degrees F. This could take an hour or more. When the lye mixture reaches 75 degrees F, warm the lard to 85 degrees F and pour in a slow steady stream into the lye/milk mixture. Stir constantly until the mixture reaches the consistency of honey. This will take 20 or 30 minutes.

When thick as honey pour into prepared molds. Allow to set for 24 to 48 hours. Unmold and cut into bars. Air-dry the soap for 4-5 weeks to cure it.


----------



## sassykat6181 (Nov 28, 2012)

not sure how it reads on your screen, but those temps should be 75 degrees F I see 750F


----------



## kc8lsk (Jan 10, 2014)

sorry changed


----------



## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

12.160 oz goats milk frozen into cubes (344.730 gr)
4.536 oz lye (128.589 gr)
24.64 oz lard (181.437 gr)
6.4 oz Coconut Oil (181.437 gr)
.060 oz Castor Oil (27.216 gr)....helps with lathering

1 oz fragrance of your choice (adjust to your desired strength....I have some I use less than that...)
dried herbs if you want...1 or 2 tsp of chopped dried herbs or to desired amount

Mix frozen milk and lye until lye is dissolved
Melt oils together 
Add lye & milk mix to the oils (temps around 95 F or so)
Use stick blender to mix to light trace, add fragrance and herbs, mix for 1 or 2 seconds
Pour into molds, cover with saran and let set for 24 hours. Unmold and set to cure for 4 to 6 weeks

Plain lard and lye soap tends to be slippery with no lathering...at all. Adding coconut oil will help to some degree. Adding the oz of castor oil will help a lot. I don't use coloring as it tends to be an extra step I just don't need. The soap will dry to different colors depending on what fragrance you use....pumpkin cures to a dark orangy/brown color, Eucalyptus to a brown, rosemary to a cream, lavendar to a light cream, etc. If you don't freeze your milk the lye will scorch it. You will have hard orange chunky's in your lye mix! Yep, learned the hard way.


----------



## CritterCarnival (Sep 18, 2013)

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum.php

Although they do tend to bristle up a bit when a newbie pops in and asks for "tried and true" recipes. They tend to be very protective when it comes to something they worked on for months to get just right. :grin:

Give them a try though, it's an absolutely wonderful forum for learning to soap!! :thumbup:


----------



## ctimlin (Sep 3, 2013)

Thanks *kccjer*. I like that recipe. I've been reading up on it all for a while now. Was hesitant to try it because wasting lard seemed like a travesty to me, but I finally did bite the bullet this week and did my first batch.

Do most of you use online lye calculators and just tweak your own recipes?

Also, is there a good rule of thumb for adding essential oils? I read one place to use about 2.5% of your weight in fat.

Lastly, anyone have any experiences in using natural colors, like beets, carrots, etc. Do you create a "dye" solution in the water, or in your fat?


----------



## ctimlin (Sep 3, 2013)

happybleats - thanks for the book suggestion. Right now all I have is "goats produce too" which has a few recipes, but I am hesitant to alter them and they all call for volume measurements, not weights.


----------



## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

ctimlin said:


> Thanks *kccjer*. I like that recipe. I've been reading up on it all for a while now. Was hesitant to try it because wasting lard seemed like a travesty to me, but I finally did bite the bullet this week and did my first batch.
> 
> Do most of you use online lye calculators and just tweak your own recipes?
> 
> ...


How did your first batch turn out? Mine was....interesting....LOL I change my ratio's a little on the oils. I usually weigh the lard first and use 24 oz of lard, 7 oz of CO and 1 oz of castor for a total of 32 oz.

I have run this thru the lye calculator online and will run a new recipe thru just to make sure. I don't usually run the oil changes thru the lye calculator as long as I have the same amount each time. If I change the amount of oil I use, then I run it.

Everything I have seen says .5 oz of fragrance oil per pound of oils. I go by that and then adjust for what seems right. I have a couple fragrances that are way too strong for me so I cut them back to 3/4 oz.

I should add that my recipe will do a little more than a velveeta box full. I use molds so don't cut mine....it does about 12 3 o 4 oz bars (round, oval, rectangle, etc.)

I know there are several people who use the dyes and create some fantastic artwork with their soap! After you mix your oil and lye together, then you divide that mix into smaller bowls and add your colors then. THEN mix it all back together however you want to do it. Too much work and mess for me. LOL


----------



## sassykat6181 (Nov 28, 2012)

different scents are going to require different amounts. my rule of thumb is to add until it just covers up the lye smell


----------



## ctimlin (Sep 3, 2013)

I think it came out ok . . . I did a goats milk oatmeal and honey soap with lard - I had a hard time getting it to a good solid trace, after a half hour of mixing, I could only get the lightest trace. I chilled the bowl and it thickened a bit, so I poured. It's 3-4 days old now, out of the molds, etc and is starting to smell nice, but seems very very soft, so I am hoping that it hardens up over the next few weeks. The last of the batch looks crumbly, so I guess we'll see.... 

I'm a little concerned because the recipe I used from "Goats Produce Too" doesn't use weight measurements - everything is cups, and when I try to covert and run it thru a lye calc, it appears to be off very badly?? I don't get what I am missing... It's in a published book, that makes me think it must be a recipe that has been used before and works?

4 cups lard, 5 cups goat milk, 1/2 cup honey, 1 cup distilled water, 1 1/4 cup of lye (recipe says a 12oz Red Devil), and 2 cups oatmeal.

None of the lye calculators seem to have any info using milk instead of water and how that affects your lye ratio... 

In the mean time I took the weekend to render a big batch of lard.  Going to work on some tallow soon and try another recipe. 

I also found a good site, Miller's Homemade Soap Pages, which has tons of feed back and ideas, links to calculators and a spreadsheet for new recipes. Seems like much better resource than what I've found before. Still no info on using milk tho.


----------



## lovinglife (Jun 6, 2013)

I replace the water with milk, no adjustments required, except I freeze the milk first. Did you use a stick blender? My last batch traced in like 3 minutes.


----------



## CritterCarnival (Sep 18, 2013)

ctimlin said:


> <snip> after a half hour of mixing, Were you mixing by hand? if so, you need to use a stick blender. Mixing by hand can take hours before everything is emulsified and starts to trace. If you don't get it all emulsified you may end up with the oils separating out in the mold.
> 
> <snip> It's in a published book, that makes me think it must be a recipe that has been used before and works? Just because it's in a book, doesn't mean anything...
> 
> ...


Answers in red/pink.


----------



## lottsagoats1 (Apr 12, 2014)

I don't use frozen milk, though I do freeze it and then thaw to make soap. I set the mixing bowl in a pan is ice water to keep the soap to be cool when I add the lye. Works like a charm, have never (knock on wood) scorched a batch.


----------

