Goat milk and lye

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Goatstone

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Back with another question, I (think) i figured out the problem I had with adding goat milk, but now I'm playing around with the recipie builder and I added goats milk as 100% of the liquids , I will link you to the recipie but it told me to use about 270g goat milk and 215g lye and that seems way off/lye heavy to me. Im really bad at navigating this software so far so I was wondering if you could confirm if that's correct or what I'm doing wrong, thank you
Recipe created by Goatstone https://www.soapmakingfriend.com/recipes/102140.almond-2
 
I can't see your recipe when I click that link. but you want to check two things: your lye concentration, and your superfat setting.

The lye concentration will not change the amount of lye needed, but it will adjust the amount of water (or in your case, goat milk) in your recipe. The numbers you listed above would result in a almost a 45% lye concentration. That could make your batter trace very quickly, leaving no time for designs,. For cold process soap, many folks like to use a 33% to 35% lye concentration, at least in the beginning.

You also want to check your superfat setting, as that will affect the amount of lye. A higher superfat means less of the oil will be made into soap, so you will use less lye. A lower superfat means more of the oil will be made into soap, so you will use more lye.

As long as you have put in the proper amounts of oils, and have set your lye concentration and superfat where you want them, the calculator will give you the correct numbers. :)
 
That's the problem though, the calculator never seems to give me the right numbers. I'm still a (semi) beginner so when I build recipies I leave the super fat and lye concentration at the defaults, 5% and 33%. I'm waiting until I'm farther in my soap journey to venture off from the defaults. I build the reciepie to fit my mold size, add my oils as percentages, then let it calculate the liquid and lye needed. I keep trying to make sure I'm not the one doing something wrong here but I don't see how my method of building recipies isn't correct, and the wrong numbers aren't coming from a broken site
 
Yes that's because my question was posted 1/25 and the response came 2/3. I had to take off the goats milk from the recipie because of how bad it screws everything up. I put it back on as 100% of the liquids and oh does it ever throw everything off
 
I just went into the recipe and noticed a big issue.
You have ‘yes’ clicked to resize the mold.
IMG_4625.jpeg

But no sizes marked, so the software doesn’t know what to do with it.

I clicked that to no, and will see if that helps.
 
Yes right underneath it, it's set for 94oz mold size so I can fill 2 48oz loaves. If this is what's causing my problem we might atleast be getting somewhere, but I'm not amazing at math so I've been setting my resize to 94 (or 48 depending on what I'm making) and putting in the oils as a percentage. If there is another easier way to do it I'm happy to listen but in my head it makes perfect sense to do it that way
 
If you click “yes” to resize the recipe, you have to put the dimensions of the new mold in those boxes. That’s how it’s resized. If you’re using molds where you know the ounces, you don’t use the resize. Just put the ounces it. I slid it back to ‘no’, as you’re not resizing the recipe, and it is perfectly fine now.

If you are using 94 ounces, or 48 ounces, or whatever, you’re not asking the software to resize the entire recipe. If you’re using a new mold, and it’s, say, 9X6X2, you’ll want to put those measurements in those boxes and click “yes” so the software will create the volume that fits in those molds. I hope that is more clear.
 
That helps alot, thank you. It does lead me to another question though. So without even messing with the "resize" I set the oil weight to 40oz to see where that would put me, and it tells me to put like 11oz milk and 5-6oz lye but says the total batch weight will be 46oz. Is that because of shrinkage or does that much weight dissipate while mixing milk/lye? 46oz would basically fill my mold but I wouldn't want to have 56-57oz come out, if that question makes sense
 
Goatstone said:
That helps alot, thank you. It does lead me to another question though. So without even messing with the "resize" I set the oil weight to 40oz to see where that would put me, and it tells me to put like 11oz milk and 5-6oz lye but says the total batch weight will be 46oz. Is that because of shrinkage or does that much weight dissipate while mixing milk/lye? 46oz would basically fill my mold but I wouldn't want to have 56-57oz come out, if that question makes sense
Click to expand...
Can you give me a link to where you’re seeing that? It doesn’t seem right.
 
Is there a better way to contact anyone with questions on here? It gets complicated trying to figure things out when there are days between responses, including the last question i still need information on. I am also asking why my goats milk cost doesn't calculate, I have it in my inventory, and i have the cost entered in my supplies, when i make a batch the goats milk doesn't show up on my "use inventory" thing with the switchable tab, and then once it's finalized it shows up again without the cost and won't let me push the tab for "use inventory".
 
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Goatstone said:
Is there a better way to contact anyone with questions on here? It gets complicated trying to figure things out when there are days between responses, including the last question i still need information on. I am also asking why my goats milk cost doesn't calculate, I have it in my inventory, and i have the cost entered in my supplies, when i make a batch the goats milk doesn't show up on my "use inventory" thing with the switchable tab, and then once it's finalized it shows up again without the cost and won't let me push the tab for "use inventory". I was trying to figure this out so I started making a "dummy" batch just to see the numbers and it automatically saved and took stuff out of my inventory so is there some way to delete this batch?
Click to expand...

We are quick to answer- it’s not “days” usually. However, the developer does need time to look into things and it’s not usually done in an hour or two. That’s why we need a specific link or a recipe/batch so that he can actually spend his time digging into the issue and not trying to wade through recipes and other things- as he needs to get to the heart of the issue fast.
 
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