amount of fresh goat milk in soap making recipe

by Zene Kaye
(SA)

Hi Cathy
I want to find out what is the highest percentage of fresh goat milk that can be use in a soap making recipe.

I am using the soap calc and normally the %water(in this instance goat milk) to oils is set as a default of 38%.
I have change it to 40% and it doesn't give me an error message to reduce the %water to oil.

If you use for example 50% goat milk in your recipe. What effect will it have on the soap. Will this extend the curing process? Can this be done?

I also want to know why does some recipes indicate that you must add the goat milk in the recipe at trace and other recipes said that initially you must add the caustic soda to the milk and thereafter mix your oils and milk,lye mixture together. Please just explain this and is it true if you add your goat milk at trace stage that the proteins and fatts will not be destroyed.
I have read that someone said that if you add the caustic soda to the lye(although you keep it very cold) you destroy the fat, vitamins and proteins.

Thank you again for all the advice. I have put alerts on for all the questions that has been posted on your site. And i always looking forward to read and expand my soap making knowledge.
It is so interesting.

Zene Kaye

Answer:

I think you have misunderstood me when I suggested using 50% goats milk....I mean that you replace half the water in a soap recipe with goats milk (incorporating the goats milk at trace and using the other half that is water to add the lye to). It has nothing to do with the %water in the recipe...that will stay the same (somewhere around 33-38% is good)...it's just that half of that percentage of water is going to be milk. No need to try and adjust the recipe with SoapCalc for that.

If you where to use more than 40% water (or milk) in cold process soap you will have a very soft and mushy soap.

I prefer to add the goats milk at trace because of the risk of burning the milk when adding lye to it. I just find it easier. I honestly don't know what effects the lye has on the milk. I also like that the soap tends to stay lighter in colour if you add the milk at trace.

Hope that makes sense to you,
Cathy