Mustard Oil Extraction

Mustard is a well-known oil seed and an annual crop. It has round stem with long inter-modes, simple, alternate and very soft yellowish green leaves. The fruit is a pod containing seeds. Dry mustard seeds are small, round and darkish-brown or grayish-brown in color. They have no smell, but when pounded and moistured with water, they emit a peculiar strong smell.

Mustard seeds, however, are obtained from the bush like mustard plant that belongs to the same genus as the plant of Rapeseed. Mustard seeds are used for the production of mustard seed oil and oil cake. This oil is yellow in color and is obtained after the crushing of the seed. In the marketplace, mustard oil is not differentiated from the rape oil as both belong to same species and have similar properties.

Mustard oil is the third largest edible oil produced in the world after Soy oil and Palm oil. At a production level of 13-14 million tons, it accounts for about 12% of the total World's edible oil production. This kind of oil is composed mostly of the fatty acids oleic acid, linoleic acid and erucic acid. At 5%, mustard seed oil has the lowest saturated fat content of the edible oils.

Mustard oil Extraction

Mustard oil extraction requires maintenance of reduced temperature (cold compression method), particularly if oil is produced on a large scale. The low temperature is crucial for preserving aroma and volatile substances. At an elevated temperature, the rate of oxidation is higher and oil flavor is reduced, thus resulting in poor quality mustard oil. The following info will help you understand about the extraction of mustard oil.

Mustard oil is extracted from the black mustard seeds, which have been macerated in warm water by steam or water distillation.
Although mustard seeds and powder do not contain allyl isothiocyanate, it is formed when the seeds came in contact with water and the essential oil is formed when a glycoside decomposes due to enzymatic action.

The essential oil is not present in the fresh seeds or the powder, and so preparations made of these do not contain Allyl isothiocyanate. White mustard seeds do not contain any essential oil.

When the mustard seeds are processed into oil, a by-product is produced which is seed's pressed cakes that have little amount of oil content in them. Oil cakes are made from these cakes from the process of distillation and these are used as animal feed. The production process yields 37% of oil and remaining is the oil cake.