Milled Soap, it seems to work so far Options

[beaker20]

Hello All... With a little time on my hands now I have tried to copy the "French Mill" of soap. I know the history of it but something seems amiss to me. Written records are not what they seem. What I have been working on is 125 grams of soap, half of the final bar, (250 gr). The first half is mixed with the workhorse of the oils, ie; coconut, palm and palm kernal oil. These are mixed with small amounts of NaOH until the full amount has been added and stirred until full trace. So far the stir time has been about 2 hours. Almost a full seize. Then very warm oils, RBO and EVOO are added to dilute the mass to a workable mix. This takes a while but all of the mass goes back into a liquid state with heat. At this time I stir for a while and add the other half of the NaOH/Goats Milk mix. At heavy trace I then add the Super Fat oil/butter combo. I have not used a frag/color so far. But the final bar is only 6 days old and seems to look great. It did achive a "gel" as it was translucent in the beaker and has not cracked or split.

This might be a cross between CP/OvenP but the reduction of partical size is what I think is ment by milling. For those that are interested I will post more results when I have them... Rob

[Judi G.]

Hi Rob,

I have been milling soap for sevreal years now. What I do if it means anything is I make a batch of soap, in my case Goats Milk as my liquid. After it has harden I grade the soap. I then take 12 oz of soap and heat it slowly with 9oz of liquid I don't add attidional oils, do this on a low heat or over a pot of boiling water, incorporate slowly until the liquid is incorperated. Pour into your mold of choice. You can reduce/increase the overall size of the batch. Just remember the 12oz soap to 9oz liquid ratio.
Have fun.
Judi

[beaker20]

Hi Judy, and thanks for your reply......

What I am trying to do is to reduce the partical size of the soap by mixing with a for lack of a better word "a saw" blade as a stick blender. I got a air powered hand grinder that I added a saw type of blade with a rimmed guard on and have used it in some trials to better mix the soap to trace and then add back the free fat oils to try to keep them "Out" of the sap process.

Some of the old papers that I have read have lead me to think that no matter what ratio of oils you use in CP that is what the ratio of free fat you wind up with, no matter what the addition order is. It seems that HP soaps give more control over the free fat/oils. This air grinder I use will turn at 15,000 rpm's at top speed and it will turn trace oil to liquid very quick but as soon as you quit stirring it sets up really fast. Alot of heat is generated also. I have noted that the "grain" of the soap is more even in the cut soap vs Hp.

As I understand the Romans "milled" soap by layering it under stones with oil and running over it with a stone wheel. Maybe I will try that next.

Thanks for your input.... Rob

[GreenGirl]

This might be a cross between CP/OvenP but the reduction of partical size is what I think is ment by milling.

Milling is a physical process, not a chemical one. Milled means just what is sounds like it means, ground up in a mill, like you'd grind coffee beans for example. French milled used rollers.

It is done after the glycerin is removed from the base soap mixture. Triple-milled for example, is just like it sounds; run through the rollers three times. Each pass makes a finer and finer powder, so the final result will be a denser and harder bar once the soap powder is pressed into bars.

Sue

[beaker20]

Thanks for your input.... Rob

This post has been edited by beaker20: Apr 11 2009, 07:44 PM