Our TN Adventure: Goat's Milk Soap Making

I have been wanting to try making goat's milk soap for quite a long time but I have been a little weary about it because you hear so many things about lye being so dangerous.

So when Kim and her daughter Anessa, our herd share clients and new friends, decided to make soap too, we thought it would be fun to make it together.

Kim and Anessa received all of their soap making supplies first so they were nice enough to bring everything to our house and we made soap for the first time.

It was EASY!!!

This is the basic recipe we used.

16 oz. Olive Oil

6 oz. Coconut Oil

4 oz. Palm Oil

3.5 Oz Lye

4 oz. distilled water

4 oz. goat milk

1-3 drops of Grapefruit Seed Extract for preservative (optional)

1-2 oz. of Essential/Fragrance Oil (optional)

We first measured out all of the oils into a large pot.

Anessa & Hailey measuring the oils

Next you heat up the oils just till they are all melted, take off of stove, set aside and let cool to 85 degrees.

Next we measured out the amount of Lye. Make sure to wear protective eye goggles and rubber gloves. Lye WILL burn you if it comes into contact.

Hailey & Kim measuring the Lye

Once we had the Lye measured, we measured out the distilled water and goat's milk. The goat's milk is frozen which helps keep the heat produced from the lye down.

Place a large bowl in the sink and fill with cold tap water and some ice cubes, then place a smaller bowl in the larger bowl and add the distilled water. Slowly mix in the lye making sure it is fully dissolved. Add in your frozen goat's milk and stir to combine completely. Check the temperature, it should be 75-80 degrees. If it's higher than that just leave it be for a couple of minutes to cool.

Kim stirring in the lye into the distilled water.

Once you have your lye/water/goat's milk mixture at the right temperature check your oils temperature. If you choose this is when you would add Essential/Fragrance Oil and also your preservative to your pot of melted/cooled oils. We decided to add the Grapefruit Seed Extract for preservative and also a fragrance oil called Energy that smells really good.

Lastly, poor your Lye/water/goat's milk mixture into the oil mixture slowly so it does not splash and start stirring. At this point you can continue to stir until the mixture thickens or you can use the short cut of using a stick blender. If using a stick blender like we did, just pulse it a few times and then stir, continue until it is the right consistency. This will be when trace appears. Trace is when you have a spoon in the mixture and you pick up the spoon and drizzle some over the top. If the drizzle sits on top of the mixture before it sinks in then you have achieved trace.

Anessa stirring the soap for a bit

Once you have achieved trace your soap is ready for it's mold.

soap ready for the molds

Kim bought 2 types of molds. One was a wooden box mold and the other was plastic tray molds, the same kind as you use for making candy. We made two batches of soap and used both molds. I have to say though I really liked the wooden box one. It was much easier to get the soap out of.

We did wrap the wooden box mold with Syran wrap since it would make for easier clean up.

Kim & I pouring the soap into the wooden box mold

Soap in the wooden box mold

Now we wait, set aside the soap in the molds for 12-48 hours.

Now it's time to cut the soap.

Hailey cutting the soap

The waiting time isn't over yet. We have to let the bars of soap cure. We stood them up on their sides so more of the soap surface is available to help cure them. Cure time is 4-5 WEEKS, Yes we have to wait weeks to find out how our lovely soap turned out.