How Traditional Mustard Oil Is Made

The steps

• Mustard seeds are cleaned and fed into a crusher, traditionally a wooden or stone ghani, which presses the oil out mechanically.
• No external heat is added during kachi ghani pressing, only the mild warmth generated by friction, which is why it is called cold pressed.
• The oil is typically left to settle rather than heavily filtered, which is why some natural sediment can appear at the bottom of the bottle.
• Refined mustard oil goes through additional heat and chemical processing after pressing, which mellows the flavour and extends shelf stability.
• Traditional pressing keeps more of the pungency and colour that refining is specifically designed to remove.

Our standards

How mustard oil is made, answered

Is cold pressed mustard oil made without heat at all?

No external heat is added, though the crushing itself generates some mild warmth. That is different from the deliberate heat used in refining.

Why does traditional mustard oil have sediment?

It is typically left to settle rather than heavily filtered, so some natural sediment from the seed can remain in the bottle.

Is a wooden ghani still used commercially?

Some producers still use one, though most commercial kachi ghani pressing today uses a mechanical version of the same slow crushing method.

Does traditional pressing yield less oil than refining methods?

Generally yes, cold pressing extracts less oil per seed than higher heat or solvent based extraction, which is part of why it costs more.