Anti-rancidity protection added to ALL oils or more troublesome ones?

[Garden Gives Me Joy]

When adding antioxidants to safeguard against rancidity, do you add your antioxidant to only the oils more prone to rancidity (like hemp seed oil, etc) or the entire batch (including coconut oil or others that are less prone to rancidity)?

 

[AliOop]

For me, it depends. I typically add ROE to my home-rendered lard and tallow immediately after the final render is done. And I typically add the ROE to my liquid oils when I purchase them.

However, if I'm going to masterbatch my oils close to the time that I am purchasing and/or rendering, I simply add the ROE to the masterbatch instead.

I have never added ROE to coconut oil, shea butter, or cocoa butter as standalone ingredients. As you noted, CO doesn't tend to get rancid. As for the butters, melting them down to add ROE is too much work since I've never had either of those go "off," either.

 

[Garden Gives Me Joy]

[...] However, if I'm going to masterbatch my oils close to the time that I am purchasing and/or rendering, I simply add the ROE to the masterbatch instead.

I have never added ROE to coconut oil, shea butter, or cocoa butter as standalone ingredients. As you noted, CO doesn't tend to get rancid. As for the butters, melting them down to add ROE is too much work since I've never had either of those go "off," either.

When the manufacturer recommends x% of oils, do you include the weights of those butters (shea and cocoa) and coconut oil / 'CO' when calculating the weight of antioxidant required in your master batch ... or do you apply that percentage to only those oils that you know are more troublesome?

BTW, I found some shea butter I had forgotten about that was already 5 years old. The parts that were exposed to air due to worn packaging was slightly yellow and rancid. So it seems like even the butters are at risk, albeit in more extreme circumstances.

I can't help but wonder whether the more rancidity prone fats increase the risk / probability of rancidity of the others with which they are comingled within a formulation, thereby making it necessary to apply the antioxidant to also cover the fats that are usually fine on their own.

 

[DeeAnna]

When the manufacturer recommends x% of oils, do you include the weights of those butters (shea and cocoa) and coconut oil / 'CO' when calculating the weight of antioxidant required in your master batch ... or do you apply that percentage to only those oils that you know are more troublesome?...

ROE is effective based on concentration. It doesn't "know" you want it to guard only the more delicate fats. When you add ROE to masterbatched fats, you're treating ALL of the fats with ROE. So your dose is calculated based on the total weight of ALL fats.

 

[AliOop]

@Garden Gives Me Joy when I add ROE to a master batch of 100% untreated oils, I do it the way DeeAnna stated: dosing based on the total weight of the fats.

But I must admit that when I mix up a master-batch that includes ROE-treated and -untreated fats, I don't add any ROE to reach the correct dose for the entire batch. Based on the science, I probably should. Since I rarely have problems with DOS, it hasn't seemed necessary so far. My main goal has been to prevent rancidity prior to making soap, and so far, what I've been doing has been working for me.

If I started getting DOS more often, no doubt I'd have to revisit this issue and start dosing more appropriately. So, it would probably be best that you do as DeeAnna says, and not as I have been doing.

 

[DeeAnna]

I add ROE to home rendered fat (lard or tallow) right after rendering and I add it to liquid fats right after I purchase them. When I make soap, if I'm using fats that weren't treated with ROE -- examples being solid fats such as coconut oil or commercial lard -- I don't add ROE to the soap batter to "treat" these fats.

There are two reasons why I don't add more ROE. First is ROE is effective over a fairly wide range of concentrations, so diluting the ROE to a lower concentration is a reasonable thing to do. Second, it's better to under-dose than over dose ROE (or any other antioxidant) to minimize the chance of "pro-oxidation".

I do add a chelator to every batch of soap. Rule of thumb -- If you're going to use one or the other in soap, it's better to use a chelator than an antioxidant. If you can use both, however, that's even better.

 

[AliOop]

@DeeAnna whew, it sounds like my current methodology is ok then. I honestly never thought about it before, so appreciate the clarification.