Teach Soap

I've been making soap for about a year now and decided to try the trickier cp soap with goat's milk. Both times I used frozen milk cubes since all info said it would heat up alot. Both times I could not get the temperature above 60 to 70 degrees F. What did I do wrong? Not stirred enough? I bought the milk at a grocery store.

You didn't do anything wrong. That happens sometimes. You can try heating up your lye/milk solution by putting your mixing container in a hot water bath. Or you can let the goat milk thaw until it's slushy and then slowly add in the lye.

You could also try dissolving your lye in an equal amount of water and adding the remaining amount of liquid as room temp goats milk at trace.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Thank you! I did not know that this would happen. I actually did heat up the milk/lye mixture above a hot water bath until it reached proper temperature for combining with the oils because I didn't want to lose the batch. They both turned out well, but I didn't expect to go through the extra step.

That is interesting to me Berrybush. I'm new to soap making. I started off with a soap making class this past January, and in class we made a goats milk soap. The teacher had her goats milk frozen in a gallon sized bag that she let warm up a bit before using a rolling pin to hack off chunks. By the time we added the lye, it was a frozen slushy mixture, but it did seem to heat up. We didn't measure the temperature in class, she just said to soap at around 112 degrees or less. By the time I went to make my own soap for the first time, I used my meat thermometer, and found that my oils cooled down to about 105 or so, but my goats milk and lye mixture was only around 70, but I did mix the lye into the milk as it sat in an ice bath. I wasn't sure what to do so I soaped with the wide temperature spread between the oils and the lye mixture anyway. The chemistry worked, and I ended up with a nice slab of soap that cured up just fine.

Now, I have a few goats milk recipes under my belt. I bought a laser thermometer to make it easier to test my temps. What a great tool! I am now soaping them when the oil and lye mixture is in the 90 degree range, and so far so good for me. My soaps have stayed light in color, and they seem to set up great. I have had no curdling issues so far. Since I have never used ice cube shaped milk, I have not experienced the mixture being too cold, and I wonder if that would be a factor in the future.

My first goat milk soap I put the frozen milk cubes in an ice water bath--I really thought it would get hot quickly. The second time of making soap I skipped that step but still used the frozen cubes, but still ended up having to heat it up. My mixing temps were also around 90 degrees, and they both turned out just fine. Perhaps next time I will let the milk get a bit slushy but have an ice water bath standing by!

Thanks for the tip about the laser thermometer. I know I need to get a better tool for taking temps.