Michael's World-o-Blog

Got the crazy idea this weekend that we needed a new adventurous country living project for the family. I decided on making soap. A little back story, we went up north to a goat farm and really enjoyed seeing the goats and all the things they made with them. We learned about the excellent properties of goat soap and got some for Hunter to use since he has such sensitive skin. My brother and his wife also enjoy the qualities of goat milk soap and also took care of such a venture last weekend, so likewise we followed suit.

I however decided to go a different route, a much more challenging route called the "hot process" method or "crockpot" method of "cooking" the soap. This allows the Lye to complete it's chemical reaction using heat to "age" the soap, making it usable right away. The other method is called the "cold" process, where you basically add all your ingredients and let the natural process work itself out without heat, taking about 6 weeks to fully "age" the soap. the advantege is it is much easier to work with and less risky as you can burn or ruin your soap with the cooking process.

Wow what a venture it was. I highly recommend it to others with sensitive skin or bored with the varieties in the store. An investment of about 30 dollars, 3 hrs of your time, and your garden variety of ingredients and utensils and you have yourself about 30 bars of soap.

Harnessing the great power of the internet, I was able to find a few simple recipes and techniques that worked for our situation and ability level. the simple reciepe included 6.5 lbs of fat (13 cups, we used a mixture for this of 70% virgin pressed olive oil, 20% organic coconut oil, 5% Vegetable shortening and 5% baby or mineral oil) 1 can of 100% Lye, 32oz of Goat Milk, 1 cup of Hot water and 1/2 cup of Honey. I also added 1/2 cup each of both ground almonds and oatmeal.

After gathering all my ingredients needed, I got my tools:

Then I chased down my awesome assistant

Then decked him out in all his safety gear (working with pure lye is highly caustic and dangerous)

Even though he didn't help me with that part, I opted him to have it ready. He was such a trooper.

Then we proceeded to measure out and pour in all our ingredients:

Hunter, promptly and on queue spills the very sticky honey all over the counter, only making half of it in its intended target. So I made him clean it up like a good helper should:

After careful measurement, I proceeded to put all the oils into the crockpot to start their melding together and started the batch of goat milk/Lye mix to add to the oils.

Having never made soap before, and trying to understand the process of making soap from a recipe that does not use goat milk (uses water instead but the goat milk can be substituted, but with this substitution calls for a substitution in the process as well) something strange happens when I "slowly" add the lye to the goat milk (as the recipe dictates)...

It starts to turn a bright orange... then a darker orange, then dark brown.. then poof! it foams up and hits the top edge of the bowel and goes almost black as you can see the results in this picture...

I had inadvertently "cooked" the milk and ruined the batch of milk/lye. Wow, I said to myself, I had missed a critical step in making GOAT milk soap is the tempering of the mixture to offset the high temperatures created when lye comes in contact with liquid. It was awesome, but definitely a learning process and had to adjust my game and delayed the schedule. Luckily I was able to recognize this was not right and stop the process there instead of adding it to the costly oil mixture. about $7 more expense, but not too bad. I had to then go get another quart of goat milk and can of lye. As a side note, goat milk tastes SOOO GOOD! it was the best milk I have ever had in my life. Best flavor, rich and creamy and bright white. Hunter certainly chugged the little cup full I gave him as well.

Attempt II.

I corrected my mistake and took the necessary steps to control the temperature of the mixture. I froze the carton of milk, and added the bowel to a sink full of ice. Then I slowly added the lye to this mixture, only about a tablespoon or two at a time, every 10 mins or so, allowing the lye to slowly melt the frozen milk and cool before continuing. I was able to control the temperature of the mix to a cool 80 degrees, down from over 200+ degrees of the first batch.

The result was a creamy mixture of a bright orange colored milky mixture, about the texture of homemade ice cream starter.

At this point I am really getting excited because now the real fun begins!

I used a stick blender to start adding the milk/lye solution to the heated oil soap base. This was definitely an arm saver, as most recipes call to use a whisk. That would have taken forever and too much effort! This was easy. With it all incorporated, it was a nice thick, rich mixture about the consistency of yogurt or liquid hand soap.

After fully incorporated together, the cooking process begins and takes the soap to a phase called "trace" where the soap is about the consistency of thick pudding. Thick enough for the whisk to create traces in the mixture as you move through it. At this point I turned the pot up to high temperate and let it cook, only stirring every 15 mins or so.

After Trace occurs, the mixture heats faster and starts to bubble around the edges of the pot. This is called the "champagne" bubble phase. This is great, meaning the soap is almost done. The Champagne phase starts the mixture turning in on itself like mini waves to the middle of the mixture, pushing the remaining oil to the center:

After the mixture rolled over itself completely (when the sides reach the center of the pot as a whole) I mixed and mixed and mixed it and it was about the consistency of applesauce:

This point is also when it is starting to get thick and starting the gel phase and almost completely soap!

As recommended in my instructions, I let it roll over again in a second champagne phase, allowing the oils to mix and incorporate more.

When it reached the center again, I killed the heat and let the mix cool a little bit, mixing the whole time. As the instructions say, it was very airy and stayed that way the whole time I mixed, like a dough starter mix for bread. As it cooled, the more it gelled and became soap! At this stage, I also added my final ingredients of ground oats and almonds to give the soap a texture.

When it came to a consistency that I was happy with and was waxy to the touch, I proceeded to pour the mix into my molds.

I used a glass cake pan lined with wax paper (for easy removal) as well as a mold that Sarah was so kind in getting us earlier in the day from her favorite craft store she was visiting.

It's pretty ugly at that stage, but was really nice to the touch and was already able to produce nice lather without any tingling after use!

Hooray! we have soap!

Our crock pot was a bit small, so I mixed the batch in a giant pot, then split it up and did it in two smaller batches that would fit in the crock pot better. This allowed for me to make several smaller moldings of the round/oval soaps as well. They definitely cooled faster and were easily removed from the soap.

Overall, happy with the process and also glad we will be able to use the soap as early as tomorrow! Not bad for about 30 dollars and a few hours on a boring weekend to make probably a years supply of very nice, creamy goat milk soap.

I will have to update you later on the results and if the mix was a success but early accounts are point that direction!