Goats milk soap

As promised (to some of my readers!!) here is my recipe for Goats Milk Soap. It is a relatively easy process but very different to the Mango Soap I posted about in my second blog. The initial recipe is similar though.

Ingredients:
170g Rice Bran Oil
580g Vegetable Oil
250g Copha
500g Solidified Oil
218g caustic soda
570g Goats milk (I used 500g goats milk and 70g water so I could get 2 batches from a litre)
1 cup oatbran
7.5ml vanilla scented fragrance

This recipe is slightly different from my previous recipe as I had almost finished my tin of vegetable oil. As such, I reduced the amount of rice bran oil so I didn't need to store the remaining 80g of vegetable oil. You could, of course, still use the original 250g of rice bran oil and 500g of vegetable oil in the original recipe. The first step in this process is to measure out your goats milk and place it in the freezer overnight.

The next step is to measure out your liquid oils and cut up the solid oils.

Melt the oils together slowly on the stove top. This can be done in advance as they need to cool down to room temperature before adding the milk mixture. The pot should be cool to touch before combining.

This is the first time I am using my brand new wooden soap mould. Once the oils have melted together, I commenced lining my mould. I used baking paper to line the mould and folded the paper so that I had a general guide. I then made a 'box' with the baking paper and folded the excess from the long sides behind the short sides. This was then folded over the top of the mould and stuck down with sticky tape.

It was then time to work with the goats milk. As you can see, the goats milk is still frozen. I got it directly from the freezer and placed it into the bowl I use for mixing the caustic soda. The bowl is sitting in my kitchen sink, which I have partly filled with cold water.

I then measured out the caustic soda. The bowl has a spoon in it this time as you need to add the caustic soda to the goats milk at the rate of a spoonful at a time.

This is showing the first spoonful of caustic soda being added to the goats milk.

I have now added about a quarter of the caustic soda. As you can see, the goats milk has started to melt.

The caustic soda has now been completely added to the goats milk. As you can see, the goats milk is almost completely melted. The sugars in the goats milk react with the caustic soda and cause a chemical reaction that is much hotter than the normal chemical reaction between water and caustic soda. This reaction can cause the goats milk to discolour and turn an orange colour if the milk isn't cold enough to start with. It is also the reason that we add the caustic soda slowly.

Once the goats milk has completely melted and the caustic soda has dissolved, it is time to mix it with the oil.

The goats milk has been poured into the oil. As with a normal soap, the caustic soda mix settled to the bottom and the oil floated to the top.

This is a photo of the initial mixing to combine the goats milk mixture with the oil. It is blended with a stick mixer until trace is reached. I don't have any photos in this blog of the trace stage as it is the same process as the Mango Soap in one of my previous blogs. Once the soap has reached light trace and ripples stay in the surface, I added 1 cup of oatbran and the vanilla scented oil. The mixture was then ready to be put into the wooden mould.

I have spread the soap into the mould. I left it on the newspaper as I wasn't sure whether the mould would leak. I am pleased to report though that the mould was liquid tight and performed perfectly.

Here is an overhead shot of the soap mould. Please note, due to the increase in temperatures when working with goats milk, this soap is not to be covered and insulated. If you cover goats milk soap while it is curing, the temperature will get too hot and it won't gel together. As such, the lid I made for this soap box was not needed at this time.

The soap has now been in the mould for about 7 hours and it is forming a firm top. It is setting nicely and I will provide another update on Sunday when I take it out of the mould. A goats milk soap needs between 24 to 48 hours in the mould before removing.