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Tallow and Goats Milk Soap

rendered beef fat into tallow plus fresh goats milk makes for a luxuriously bubbly lather. No frills, just rustic, cleansing farmhouse style skin care.
Prep Time8 hours
Active Time1 hour
Curing30 days
Total Time30 days 9 hours
Keyword: DIY body care, homemade soap, soap
Yield: 9 4.5 oz bars
Author: johnsonhomenc

Equipment

  • kitchen scale
  • immersion blender
  • stock pot
  • 2 mixing bowls
  • silicone spatula or spoon
  • 2 stainless steel spoons
  • soap loaf mold

Materials

  • 12.16 oz fresh goats milk frozen into cubes
  • 19.20 oz beef tallow
  • 9.60 oz jojoba oil
  • 3.20 oz coconut oil
  • 3.95 oz sodium hydroxide

Instructions

Prepare Ahead

  • Freeze goats milk into ice cubes at least 8-10 hours before using in this soap recipe.
  • If you are adding oatmeal, flower petals, herbs, colorants, or essential/fragrance oils, get those prepared and measured.
  • Set aside at-trace add-ins for when the soap comes to a light trace when you can add these ingredients into the mixture and blend well.

Frozen Goats Milk

  • It is a good practice to measure out goats milk ice cubes first and set aside about 15 minutes before doing any other process. This gives the frozen milk a few minutes to melt a little before adding the lye. The water/milk that has melted some kick starts the lye heating process.

Oil/Fats Temperature

  • Heat the measured oils and fats in a stock pot over low heat until all have melted together. Stir constantly and remove from heat as soon as all are melted.
  • Check the temperature of your oils using thermometer. It could be anywhere from 110-150 degrees. The oils will need to come down to about 85-95 degrees for this recipe. Allow the oils/fats plenty of time to come down to that temperature.
  • This can take 20 minutes, give or take. Check the temperature often.

Goats Milk and Lye Union

  • Sprinkle lye by the spoonful carefully over the frozen, but thawing, goats milk ice cubes and stir constantly.
  • Add another spoonful and stir. Repeat until all lye is gone. Stir constantly to avoid milk getting too hot and scorching.
  • Using a thermometer, measure the temperature of both the oils/fats and lye once it is melted together, making sure to wipe the stick with a paper towel between bowls.
  • When the temperatures are between 95 and 85 degrees for both or either oil/fats pot and goats milk-lye, you can add the lye-milk mixture to the oils/fats and begin blending with an immersion blender.

Bring Soap to Trace

  • Use an immersion blender to incorporate the lye-milk and oils for blending for a series of 5 sets of 1 minute of blending, 2 minutes of rest or until the soap reaches light trace. These sets are give or take. Could be more sets, could be less. Keep looking for the light trace!
  • You will know the soap is at light trace when you drizzle the soap mixture over the surface of the soap in the pot and it leaves behind a trail or a trace that doesn’t go away. It sits right on top.
  • If you are adding any essential or fragrance oils, colorants, or herbs/flowers; this is the step when you add those then blend again for another 30 seconds.

Pour and Let Sit

  • Once all ingredients are well incorporated, carefully pour the soap into the soap loaf.
  • Then cover the soap loaf with parchment paper then a towel and allow it to rest in a safe place for 18-24 hours.

Cut and Cure

  • The next day, it is safe to cut the soap into bars to sit and cure for about 4 weeks, perhaps a little more if the soap bars still feel soft.

Notes

Cut bars at a 2.5 on the cutter that comes with the soap mold kit linked in the blog post for this recipe. This yields 9 bars weighing about 4.5 oz each.
 
More soap recipes at www.johnsonhomeNC.com and you can purchase homemade farmhouse style soaps at the website too!