Blast from the Past
A post from our original blog about our first soap making attempt. (March 2009)
jc
11/27/20254 min read
March 19, 2009 Well, the post I had planned on doing about our soap-making adventure was delayed. There is an old saying: “Some things never change!” That seems to be the story of my life. I make a gazillion plans to do this and that, only to have said plans interrupted by other, more pressing tasks. I am at a crossroads—either I scale down the plans or eliminate some of the tasks. Neither option appeals to my “do-everything” personality, but it has to be done. Maybe I should do a little of both and see how that works out! Yeah, that’s the ticket! So, on with the soap-making post (that will eliminate one task)!
Sunday, being a rainy day and all, we decided to do a little experiment with old-timey soap making, even though we did it the not-so-old-timey way. First step was to gather all of our ingredients in one place (I made a comment about that in the cheese-making post here). Translated, that means after a quick trip to town to pick up a couple of things that we had forgotten to pick up earlier in the week. Now, so as not to confuse anyone about our (read, my) methods, we (I) almost never do just one thing at a time. Call me the ever-multi-tasker! Note to self: multi-tasking is NOT always a good SOP (standard operating procedure). Note to readers: Note to self MAY apply to you as well ;). So after many interruptions (see paragraph above), we got started. Another note: do not attempt to start making soap, or any other first-time experiment, late in the evening. It can make for a long evening...this is experience talking.
We did not really get started until after supper, which was awesome, by the way. Jamie made stir-fried beef strips with onions, peppers and fresh mushrooms and rice. Mmmm, mmmm! Mind off food...mind off food! You can guess that I am getting a little hungry. Even though we had our ingredients, we did not have enough plastic soap molds for the entire batch of soap (and it was a small batch). So off to the workshop to make a couple of wooden molds I went. I made the soap molds out of some scrap 1 X 4 boards that I had left over from another project. I did this while Jamie was making that delicious meal I mentioned earlier. After eating, I said, “Let the soap making begin!”
We first lined the soap molds with freezer paper. Who would have thought that freezer paper would be so uncooperative? Here is one mold lined with paper and one patiently awaiting its fitting. After that, we measured out the oils and started heating them in a pot on the stove. This is one of those deviations from the real old-timey method…we used a stove instead of a fire outside! Woo-hoo for modern conveniences! Then it was time to mix the lye with the goat’s milk, which we had frozen earlier to make the process go along smoother. Lye is 100% caustic soda, which can cause severe burns if not handled properly and with care; hence, the rubber gloves. Mixing the lye with the milk, or any liquid for that matter, causes a strong chemical reaction. And with all chemical reactions, a by-product is heat; in this case, a lot of heat! When the lye was dissolved in the frozen goat’s milk, the temperature of the solution quickly climbed to 165 º. And that’s from somewhere around freezing! Then, we had to wait for the solution to cool down to around 110º. Here is a picture of what the lye and goat’s milk look like after they were combined. Jamie is stirring the solution to help it cool down faster.
At the same time, we turned off the oils to let them cool. Then we wait…and wait…and wait. Boy, that sounds familiar! Finally, after everything cooled to the proper temperature, it was time to combine the mixture and watch the soap form. Here again is where we deviated from the old-timey method…we used a stick blender. This is one of the most convenient inventions known to soap makers across the globe. Another woo-hoo for modern conveniences. Without it, we would have been stirring completely by hand. Stirring and stirring and stirring! The soap started to thicken after a few minutes if stirring, a little with the stick blender, a little with the spoon, and tada, we had the beginnings of real, homemade soap. We poured the soap into the molds, covered them and set them aside to cool.
On Monday, we un-molded the soap and cut it into bars. We arranged them on a board and set them on the shelf in the laundry room to continue drying and curing. Homemade soap has to cure about six weeks before it is ready to use. So in 6 weeks or so, we will be using our own goat’s milk soap. It's kind of nice to know that something we made will be of such a benefit to us--who knows, we may even start a soap making factory (Jamie just said, "NO WAY!"). Until next time, blessings....
