Canola - Does it Cause DOS or Not?

[DianaMoon]

I've heard so many bad things about Canola causing DOS but I am skeptical. It's just an oil with a certain FA profile & should not cause DOS of itself. Perhaps the oil was rancid to begin with, or on the way to rancidity...? I do not know. What are people's experiences w/Canola. There is a bottle of Canola in the local Fairway market that is very cheap and has a really light, almost transparent, color, which I want.

 

[cmzaha]

You are going to get all kinds of answers mostly negative. You pm'ed me and apparently did not like my answer. I have trouble with lard, others do not, I do not have trouble with either regular Canola at 20% or less others do. You need to do your own testing and see how it works for you. Yep, parents have me testy today but how many times does a question need to be answered. You will always get positive and negative answers if you ask often enough. As I mentioned nothing is set in stone with soapmaking, so testing testing testing is imperative. I have had side by side batches that are identical act differently.

 

[DianaMoon]

It had nothing to do with not "liking" an answer. I didn't understand something, and thus decided to solicit other opinions.

 

[dixiedragon]

There are a number of soapers who say it causes DOS but there are also folks here who sell and use canola and have no problem. My guess is that DOS is often combination of factors. So if you have A + canola, or B + canola, you get DOS. But if you have neither A nor B, then no DOS. Now, if we could just figure out A and B, lol.

If you want to use canola, go for it.

ETA: I should say, canola is more prone to DOS. not cause.

 

[dibbles]

I have used canola, but not often, without problems. have a friend who uses canola in every batch with no problems. Of the oils I can buy at the grocery store, I prefer avocado or HO sunflower.

 

[Millie]

I think it depends how much you use (assuming you are using fresh-ish oils) and the FA profile of your batch as a whole. I have a couple batches with around 30% canola aged around 2 yrs with no DOS. At this rate in those particular recipes the total linoleic and lenolenic fatty acids fall within the range of not-likely-to-cause-DOS. YMMV.

 

[cmzaha]

It had nothing to do with not "liking" an answer. I didn't understand something, and thus decided to solicit other opinions.

You asked about lowering superfat or raising CO. I mentioned if CO is lower in percentage I prefer to lower superfat, because I find low CO and 5% or above harder to rinse off.

 

[NsMar42111]

No oil "causes" DOS-it's rancidity that "causes" DOS. The ONLY way you are going to find out , as czmaha has said, is to test it for yourself and your particular set of circumstances. DOS doesn't (unfortunatly) appear immediatly after making the soap, it takes time to develop. So, make some batches using canola and wait at least six months (a year is better) and then if there's no DOS, you're all set. If you are only making soap for yourself, make a small batch and use it up within a month or two and you can use any oil you want because DOS may not show up that fast (very few exceptions). If you are looking to sell, you STILL need to be testing and waiting six month to a year to confidently say no DOS.

There's a good thread here that I can't find off the top of my head that showed results of single oil soaps and you can see what the canola one looks like, I don't recall it being a pure white soap. You want pure white, do a 100% coconut bar at 20% superfat. That's a really white bar.

Personally, I don't use canola. I trust the results of people before me who had issues with it. And I trust the opinion of people who have been doing this a lot longer than me. I'm not wasting good oil and lye and my time/curing space/brain space on something with a higher chance of failure than I want...it's not worth saving .15 a bar.

 

[cmzaha]

This was my original answer to this question when I was asked my opinion... I used regular Canola in the 20% with no problems for several years. I recently went to Canola HO because I can get 35 lb totes at a local restaurant supply. But I would still use the canola from Costco if I could not get the HO. I recommend you try it and see how it works for you. I am not a high superfatter using a 2% superfat for most soaps because I also use lower CO than many. Low CO and high superfat creates a soap that can be hard to rinse off. There was a time I thought I was getting some dos from Canola but found out it was from the soap touching the uncovered sides of my chrome drying rack. Check out Millersoap.com and the Canolive soap recipes, I had a canolive2 recipe soap I kept for a year using it periodically and it never became dossy, using the soap a couple times a month to see how it would do. It was one that I received in a soap swap and loved it. It is the Linoleic and Linolenic acids that most want to keep very low. For me lard, which I do like in soap is my troublemaker and it only contains 6% or so Linoleic so go figure. I keep lard no higher than 25% or I end up with dossy soaps or will smell piggy after about a year. Soap is such a funny animal, it works so differently for different soapmakers. Unless I am making 100% castile soap I do not use OO in my soaps. I prefer Sunflower HO, Canola, Avocado and Safflower HO, have not tried regular Safflower. Almond Oil is lovely but to expensive for me to put in soaps I sell.

In closing I say try it and if you can get Canola HO (sometimes labeled as frying oil) get it. Try a test batch and keep at least 1 bar for a year and see what happens. After-all no one here seems to have trouble with lard other than me. I even test 100% lard test samples using every brand I could find plus the rendered lard in Hispanic stores. All but 1 acquired varying degress of dos but Farmer John was the worst with allover dos. Morrell Snow Cap lard never acquired dos, which our Walmart carries.

This answer seemed to cause some confusion...
I find if coconut oil is used on the low percentage side such as 10-15% and a 5% or above superfat is used the soap will not rinse off well. It can feel like a film is left and this is even when I use a chelator, to cut soap scum. But keeping in mind this is my opinion and maybe it will not be what you like

Maybe some of you can answer better than me

 

[NsMar42111]

Urmmmm that was a GREAT reply......... wow I need to start PM'ing people . What's the confusion?

For future reference of anyone reading this, if you are confused by what someone said, just ask them directly. If you are confused by a reply and they won't answer, best thing to do is to say something like "I received this information from so and so (thank you!) and would like to hear other opinions: (insert information here)".

Or, better yet, just ask the question in the forums here so that everyone can benefit from the information. If a debate ensuses, so much the better! And it avoid any hard feelings. AND most importantly, no one wastes time having to resay what they already said.

 

[DianaMoon]

Kevin Dunn has written several articles which have been posted on the Internet about this issue. They were very informative.

Thanks for all your answers, as always.