Skills Learned Through WWOOFing: Making Soap

Remember “All I ever hear is Marsha Marsha Marsha” ?

If you’ve been reading my posts lately you might be thinking that - just with Goat Milk instead of Marsha.

I mean, look at this list. I’ve talked about:

• Milking goats
• Drinking goat milk
• Making and eating goat milk yogurt
• Making and scarfing down goat milk cheese

But like any cheesy (heh) TV ad says, but wait, there’s more!

Only this time we aren’t going to use the goat milk for something to eat or drink. Instead, it’s to get clean.

Goat Milk Soap

Julia, the farm owner, makes goat milk soaps and goat milk body creams. I used both the soap and body cream during our stay.

During our final week at the farm, Julia made two batches of soap. I’ve never made soap before so I was excited to watch and learn this art.

Recipe

Rosewood Citrus Goat Milk Soap

Ingredients

• Food-grade powdered lye
• Coconut oil - for cleansing
• Olive oil - for moisturizing
• Palm oil - for lathering
• Water
• Goat milk
• Essential oils

All ingredients are measured by weight, not volume.

Directions

1. Don apron, safety glasses and gloves.
2. Carefully pour lye into water (do not do it the other way). The reaction between the two ingredients is exothermic. It will cause the mixture to heat up.
3. While the lye and water mixture is cooling, measure out the coconut oil, heated olive oil, and heated palm oil.
4. Pour the three oils into the soap kettle.
5. Weigh the essential oils in measuring cup. Pour into soap kettle with oils.
6. Add the goat milk to the lye/water mixture when the temperature has decreased and won’t curdle the milk. The mixture will heat up again as the milk reacts with the remaining lye.
7. When the lye mixture finishes reacting, carefully pour it into the soap kettle.
8. Plug in your stick blender - attached to a powered drill - and begin mixing. Alternate between short bursts with the blender and hand mixing with the blender turned off.
9. Continue to stir until you see trace. Trace is the point where the oils and lye solution are well mixed.
10. When trace is evident, you have soap. Pour the solution into a lined mold.
11. Leave the soap to cool and set. The time required to set is determined by the quantity made and the essential oils added. Rosewood Citrus Goat Milk Soap takes about 72 hours.
12. When the soap is set, cut into bars. Place the bars on a well ventilated tray, leaving space between the bars.
13. Leave the soap to cure for a month.

Notes

After the soap is cured, the bars are ready for:

• Weighing
  Each bar needs to be about 4.0oz. If the weight is lower, the bars are added to a discount bin. If the bars have large blemishes or holes they are placed in the “house soap” box. We’ve showered using several of the house soaps.
• Beveling
  The edges of the bars can be quite sharp. We bevel the bars for a better feel in the hand.
• Boxing
  The bars are boxed in specially designed wraps.

The End…?

With this post, I am done talking about what the WWOOFers do with the goat milk. But, I’ve got one more post that involves goat milk the way God designed it.

Other Goat Farm experiences

• Birthing Kids
• Goat Farm Wrap-up
• Making Goat Cheese
• Making Yogurt
• Milking Goats
• First Week on a Goat Farm
• Processing the Milk
• Worming Goats