Beer & Hops Cold Process Soap Recipe

Beer & Hops Cold Process Soap Recipe

Make your own beer soap with this wonderful recipe. The essential oils used create a beautiful scent profile: fresh citrus at the top, green and herbal hops in the middle, and a warm, woody base. The combination of coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, rice bran oil, and castor oil creates a wonderful all-around soap. The beer adds sugars, which can help create a richer lather.

Cold-process beer and hop soap ingredients

For extra decoration and exfoliation, you can add some chia seeds to the soap.

Preparing the Beer

Preferably use a beer with a distinct malt and hop character, but without any added flavorings. Let the beer go completely flat first. Stir regularly so that as much carbonation as possible is released.

Next, it’s a good idea to remove the alcohol from the beer. To do this, gently heat the beer and let it warm up slowly for a while. Then let it cool completely.

Next, weigh out the required amount. If a significant amount of water has evaporated during heating, top it off with demineralized water until the desired weight is reached.

For added safety, you can then chill the beer or partially freeze it before adding the NaOH.

Methodology

1. Wear appropriate gloves and eye protection, and work in a well-ventilated area.
2. Slowly add the NaOH to the cold beer. Never the other way around. Stir gently. Due to the natural sugars in the beer, the mixture may darken and react more vigorously than a normal lye solution.
3. Let the lye solution cool.
4. Meanwhile, gently melt the coconut oil and shea butter.
5. Add the olive oil, rice bran oil, and castor oil, and mix everything well.
6. Once the oils and lye solution have cooled sufficiently, add the lye solution to the oils.
7. Using a hand blender, mix in short bursts until soft peaks form.
8. Next, add 10–15 g of hop essential oil, up to the amount permitted according to the safety information for your specific oil.
9. Mix briefly but thoroughly.
10. Pour the soap batter into the mold.

Don’t let it get too hot

This is especially important when making beer soap. The sugars in the beer can speed up the saponification process and generate extra heat. For that reason, I wouldn’t wrap the mold too thickly, as is sometimes done with regular cold-process soap.

If in doubt, place the mold in a cool place for the first few hours. If the center starts to bulge significantly, crack, or become extremely hot, the soap is overheating.

Curing

After about 24–48 hours, remove the soap from the mold once it is firm enough, and cut it into pieces.

Then let the soap cure for at least 4–6 weeks in a dry, well-ventilated place.

How will this soap turn out?

The combination of coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, rice bran oil, and castor oil creates a wonderful all-purpose soap. The beer adds sugars, which can help produce a richer lather.