# Pre-Mixing Lye



## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

I have read that some pre-mix their lye. In doing so, do you just mix for a certain recipe or all that you will be using for let's a week?


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

I mix as many of the 2lbs bottles that I have time to do. Ive kept them as long as 3 weeks. I pour out what I need in a pitcher, mix it for a sec or two with the stick blender and pour it in while I have the stick in the oil mix. Mixing lye is my least favorite part of soaping and this makes it great, like someone else sweeping the floor before you mop. :biggrin Dorit


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

I have mixing days. I'll mix up lye solution until I"m sick of it or all my containers are full. As long as the solution is stored in a sealed container it will last a really long time.


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

At the end of any soaping day I mix enough for another full day's soaping. It *usually* gets used in the next few days but I have left it sit for several weeks before. I cover it right away too, while it's hot, so the water doesn't evaporate. I mix it in 1 gallon pitchers (filling them less than 3/4 full) so when I'm ready to use it I stir it all up then strain it into another pitcher. Then I pour off from that into a smaller pitcher for each batch as I go. It's very quick and easy for me and I don't have a system down to store much more than that at one time.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I do a 50 pound bag at a time, in buckets on the cement in my milkroom. 5 pounds of lye in 5 pounds of water in buckets, let them cool with the big fan blowing and then pour (using a funnel) into my jugs. I use bleach jugs. When I am down to not having enough jugs for the next evenings soapings, I fill them all up the next chore day.

Always label your lye if you use containers!!! My husband powerwashes houses etc....one of his helpers grabbed my bleach jugs and took them on the job. Thankfully my husband saw the lye/water and the skull and crossbones my grandson drew on them for me!!!


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

So if my recipe calls for 16 ounces of lye. (I used all goats milk in a recipe for my liquid) How would the lye then be measured out? Is this for a lye/water/milk mixture recipe ?


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

I can answer this because I spent hours trying to figure it out!!!! And yes I did graduate from high school. lol
Using soap calc take the total water amount prescribed. Subtract the 16oz of lye from it. That number is the amount of milk you add. Back to the lye. Measure out 160z of water, add the 16oz lye to it. Now you have a 50/50 lye water mixture and the specific amount of milk to add. This saves freezing the milk, etc. I add the milk at trace. I try to have milk at room temp or warm it in the microwave. BTW I have used milk that is old and stinks with no adverse results  Dorit


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Dorit  I finished high school too! LOL It is just trying to wrap my brain around some of these techniques. Working with lye and so many variables to use with it. Using the walmart recipe as a guide: mix 16 ozs. lye and 16 ozs. water, that is my lye mixture, which would be 16 ozs of mix. Then reducing the milk would be brought down from 34 ozs to 18 ozs? Did I understand this correctly?


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

Betty, actually you now have 32oz lye/water mix. If your total water is 34oz (i think its probably a greater amount) then your milk addition would be 2oz. This is the very same error I kept making. You'd think the lye dissolves in water and gets gobbled up, but it still has seperate weight. That is why when you you weigh out the mix you are accounting for the total weight of the lye PLUS an equal amount of water. (16oz lye + 16oz water). Does that make sense? Dorit


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

YES! :biggrin It does now! So now then this would not be a true 100% goat milk recipe that I am making, right? Or does the water in it mean anything?


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

GREAT! you are correct, not 100% goatmilk. However Vicki did a challenge to see if anyone could tell which was GM and H20, and I think it was very close, so I consider the amount of GM I add is more GM that any other soap has.  Dorit


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

okay then! :yeahthat. Thank you all! :biggrin


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

You're just using the water (or whatever other kind of liquid you use) to dissolve the lye. It takes an equal amount of liquid to dissolve an equal amount of lye (if your recipe calls for 16 ounces of lye, then you need 16 ounces of liquid to dissolve it). If you want to continue using a 100% goat milk recipe, dissolve your 16 ounces of lye in 16 ounces of milk and once it's cooled down, cover it and put it in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it . . . add any extra milk over and above your original 16 ounces when you're ready to make soap. Also, you'd probably want your solution to warm to room temperature before adding it to your soaping oils . . .


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Thanks, Caroline! :biggrin Will try this! BUT I will have to get a dedicated fridge in sopa room for this so as not to have anyone getting ahold of this and try to drink it. I have grandkids in and out all the time.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Whenever I have set milk and lye out for any length of time it goes yellow than orange and the butterfat in the milk starts saponifying and burning, and leaves the soap grainy and dark...these little pastilles of 'soap' come to the top at thin trace pour and leave it ugly. Course I left it in the soaping sink for the same reason, grandkids.

I tried everything and why to move to bigger batches more efficiently I started making 50/50 lye water just like you can buy in England (who I pretty much learned to soap larger from) a commercial soaper there. Vicki


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

Vicki, are you talking about pre mixing milk and soap and letting it sit out? Or are you saying you use old milk and if it gets too old it seperates and forms globs that burn? Dorit


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

No. Stirring your lye into frozen milk. Then after it is dissolved and the milk is liquid, setting it in the sink to use that night or the next day. The lye simply start burning the sugar in the milk and saponfying the butterfat in the milk. Makes for dark soap, and little bits of soap pastiells in your finished soap. They settle on the top of the bar and look like lye beads.


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Well, scratch doing that! I will try the 50/50 mix with water. I can still call it goat milk soap just not 100%!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

No Betty, you haven't been soaping long enough, you have to keep doing it for several years....weighing milk, freezing milk, melting milk, straining out the clumps, not being able to control your colors  Then move to lye/water, milk at emulsion  :crazy :rofl


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

You mean I can't learn from you all and get to do shortcuts! :crazy You want me to suffer through all that you had to do beforehand! However, in reality I want to know the whys and the nots of the way some soap recipe/ingredients behave and some do not. I am in no way a chemistry person! So reading a lot I do! I made the walmart batch and it came out good even with a swirl (first time swirl!). I must have not read ALL the way through because I made it all 100% goat milk and swirled! I used a mica for the color. My milk was frozen. I have a really light tan with pink top swirl.


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> No Betty, you haven't been soaping long enough, you have to keep doing it for several years....weighing milk, freezing milk, melting milk, straining out the clumps, not being able to control your colors  Then move to lye/water, milk at emulsion  :crazy :rofl


 And God forbid, DON"T SELL ANYTHING!


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Whoops! :rofl Too late for that! I have jumped in with both feet and am stuck now! :crazy


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Pefect Heather!!!!


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