SOAP!

A lot of people ask about my soap, well I wrote a blog a long time ago with instructions.  It is an oldie, but a goodie.  
Fun tips: You can add any liquid you want, like beer or hard cider, even whey.  Have fun with your soap.  This recipe is for the good old goat milk soap, which you can still find in my shop.  


I started making soap about a year ago.  It started with a simple crock pot soap recipe which was easy enough for beginners.  Here is the link to that recipe.  http://www.diynatural.com/crock-pot-soap/


With that recipe I made lots of great soap, but I didn't really like to consistency.  I dreamed of doing soap the "old" way, and so I raised some pigs and got some goats!  I recently made a batch of goat milk soap using lard as the oil.  But why goat milk?  And what the heck is lard??  Well sit down children and I will tell you a tale of pH and silky soap!


First on lard.  Lard is rendered pig fat, you cook the solid fats down to a nice liquid and strain off the crackling which is skin/meat that was attached to the lard.  If you are adventurous you could make crackling cookies or eat them, I am not ready for that yet.  I give mine to the dogs.  But back to lard.  Lard acts as the hardening agent in soap, and lard makes really nice hard bars in less time.  Lard also creates a really nice lather and is very creamy and soothing on the skin.  I also use it because you can easily get it.  If you don't raise hogs you can always ask your local butcher for some pig fat for soap making.  If you can get it ground up it takes way less time to render, and you will be really happy with your soap results.


Goat milk!  Could there be anything as beautiful as goat milk?  I have a very small herd of Nigerian dwarf goats and I am currently only milking one of them.  In the future I plan to milk more but right now I have to wait until they have more kids.  The goats I have produce a small amount of milk, because they are small goats, but their milk has the highest amount of fat in it and fat makes good soap.  Also goat milk has minerals like selenium which helps restore sun damaged skin, and vitamin A as well as alpha-hydroxy acids which help remove old skin cells.  Bet your store bought soap don't have any of that fancy pants stuff!
Side note on the goats.  I sold the goats to a friend.  They are all happy and healthy but they had to go.  They kept teaching the sheep how to get out of the darn fence...  



This is a very simple recipe.  It is only lard, lye, and milk.


First you'll need a kitchen scale for weighing the ingredients and you'll need to run everything through the lye calculator which can be found here http://www.brambleberry.com/pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx








Take your goat milk and measure it out, freeze it in small cubes and measure your lye.


Once you have the calculations you heat up the lard to 100 degrees slowly in a metal pot on the stove.




Take a bowl (I use a metal one) and gather the frozen goat milk and lye.  Outside with gloves on and safety glasses (I can't stress this enough.  The lye will burn your skin if it touches you!) mix the lye with the frozen goat milk slowly and keep an eye on the temperature.  The lye will melt the milk and heat it up to 110 degrees.  You want to add the milk chips slowly so that the mixture doesn't get above that 110 or it will spoil the milk.





Once you have the correct temperatures mix the lard and the milk together using an emersion blender on low to start.  Add essential oils, oats, or anything else you want at this point too.





Now you will need to kick it into high gear to get it to trace, which to me looks like pancake batter..



Once you have trace you'll add it to your soap mold.  Some people get the fancy ones you buy or use old bread pans.  All that works just fine.  Jake made me one out of wood.  I line the mold with parchment paper because my mold is wood and I don't want that texture on my soap.



 


Side note again... Look at how young and tan I am!  Our kitchen looks nothing like this anymore...  

Next you smooth out the soap, cover it with a couple towels to keep in the heat and set it aside for at least 12 hours.  After 12 hours you can take the soap out and cut it into bars.







The bars will need time to cure.  Place them in a area that is cool but gets good air circulation.  Soon you'll have hard wonderful goat milk soap to give as gifts or keep it for yourself!!