I'm planning to start making some soap with milk from my Juniper. To get a general idea of what the butterfat percentage of her milk is, I kept a cup of it in my refrigerator for several days to see how much cream rose. I skimmed off a little over a tablespoon, but I could tell there was still more in the milk, so I estimated she has about 1 and 1/2 TBS. of cream per cup of milk, giving her a butterfat percentage of roughly 9%. 

Most goat soap recipes are written for goat's milk from full size goats, therefore the butterfat percentage is lower. My question is will I have to adjust the recipe to account for the additional fat in my goat's milk? 

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Replies

  • I've been using this one ever since I started making soap in 2003:

    https://www.thesage.com/calcs/LyeCalc.html

  • Thanks Deborah, I'm excited to see how it will come out.  Do you have a particular calculator that you prefer using? 

  • It's not a big deal. Years ago I did the math, and I don't remember any longer what the exact numbers were, but basically you WANT your soap to be super-fatted, so by using ND milk, you're doing that. When I use a lye calculator for ND soap, I usually quantity of lye for about 4% excess fat according to the calculator, so in reality, I'll have 5-6% excess fat, which is excellent. That makes for a really nice bar of soap that is gentle on your skin.

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