How Much Oil 1 Kg Mustard Seed Gives in India 2026

Last updated: 17 September 2026

> Quick Answer: 1 kg of Indian mustard seed yields roughly 300 to 350 ml of oil in a traditional kolhu. The seed itself holds 380 to 420 g of oil, 38 to 42 per cent by weight, per ICAR-DRMR varietal data. A kolhu leaves about 15 per cent of that fat behind in the cake.

Ask a mill 1 kg sarso me kitna tel nikalta hai and the answer depends on the machine. A wooden kolhu returns about 300 to 350 ml per kilogram. A screw expeller gets 360 to 410 ml from the same sack, and a solvent extraction plant strips out 410 to 455 ml.

The seed is not the variable most buyers assume it is. ICAR-DRMR lists its released mustard varieties between roughly 37 and 43 per cent oil, a six point spread. The press moves the recovered volume by half as much again. What ends up in the bottle is decided by the machine, not the sack.

Why does the seed hold more oil than any press gives back?

Because some of the oil never leaves the cake. The oil content published for a variety is what a laboratory finds in the whole seed. Recovery is what a press actually squeezes out, and the two are never the same number.

Take a kilogram of seed at 40 per cent oil: 400 g of oil in 600 g of solids. The FAO's survey of Indian oil processing puts residual fat in ghani oilcake at about 15 per cent, roughly twice what a screw press leaves. Work backwards and the cake weighs about 705 g and still holds 106 g of oil.

Therefore, 294 g makes it to the filter, just more than 320 ml. Keeping the seed's oil content at either extreme of the published range moves the answer around from 300 to 350 ml.

How much oil does 1 quintal of mustard seed give?

A quintal, 100 kg, gives about 30 to 35 litres from a kolhu, 36 to 41 from a screw expeller, and 41 to 45 from a solvent plant. The seed carries 38 to 42 kg of oil into the mill. The gap between those figures is what stays in the cake.

Route	Oil left in the cake	From 1 kg of seed	From 1 quintal
Wooden kolhu or ghani	about 15 per cent	300 to 350 ml	30 to 35 litres
Screw expeller, unheated	about 7 to 8 per cent	360 to 410 ml	36 to 41 litres
Solvent extraction	1 per cent or less	410 to 455 ml	41 to 45 litres

These come from published oil content and residual-fat percentages, converted at a little over 900 g to the litre. They describe a method, not one mill. Solvent extraction also delivers refined oil, not kachi ghani: India's food standards allow the kachi ghani or cold pressed label only when natural allyl isothiocyanate is not less than 0.20 per cent by weight.

What does a kolhu leave behind that an expeller does not?

There is approximately double the volume of oil due to pressure. According to the FAO, the pressure in a ghani is about 10 kg per square cm. That is roughly a third of what a small screw press applies, and a tenth to a hundredth of a large modern expeller.

Speed compounds it. A traditional ghani handles about 50 kg of seed a day and a powered unit about 100 kg, against tonnes on an expeller line. SatRas presses in its own wooden kolhu built around an imli wood core, which turns roughly five times slower than a conventional expeller and works at low temperature to limit nutrient degradation.

Indian commercial practice shows how real the gap is: FAO records ghani cake being put back through screw presses to bring it down to about 2 per cent oil. Kachi ghani, cold pressed and wood pressed all sit at the low-recovery end of that scale.

What moves the yield from one lot of seed to the next?

Variety, moisture and cleanliness, in that order.

1. Variety. ICAR-DRMR lists DRMR 150-35 at 36.7 to 42.8 per cent oil, a six-point spread inside one variety, because oil content shifts with season, soil and location. Two sacks of the same named seed can differ by several litres a quintal.
2. Moisture. Industrial cold pressing conditions rapeseed to about 7 to 8 per cent moisture, keeping the oil under 40 degrees Celsius. Too wet and the barrel slips, too dry and the cake crumbles.
3. Cleanliness. Dockage counts: stones, stalks and dust weigh the same as seed and yield nothing.

Newer releases are bred for oil content. Amar Ujala reported CCS Haryana Agricultural University releasing RH 1424 and RH 1706 in August 2022 with seed oil content of 38 to 40 per cent. That is a news report of a university release, nothing more.

Where does the missing oil actually end up?

In the cake. A kilogram of seed leaves roughly 700 g of kolhu cake still holding around 100 g of oil, and that cake is sold on as sarso khali, a slow release source of nitrogen for pots and beds.

SatRas creates its own pressing waste and sells it at mustard oil cake powder, ₹229 for 900 g, and ₹399 for 1.8 kg. Thus, a retail package sold to customers should not be confused with the wholesale pricing a mill gets for cake, which is only a small percentage of the price of oil.

For dosing, work about 100 g, roughly a cup, into the topsoil of a 10 to 12 inch pot, or soak 1 part powder in 15 parts water for 24 hours as a tea. The neem khali and sarso khali dosing guide carries the detail. Keep it away from children, pets, ponds and aquariums.

What does the yield gap do to the price of a litre?

It adds roughly ₹30 a litre before anything else is counted. The minimum support price for rapeseed and mustard is ₹6,200 a quintal for the 2026-27 marketing season, approved by the Cabinet on 1 October 2025 against a stated cost of production of ₹3,210.

Disperse ₹6,200 over 32 litres from an kolhu and the seed alone will cost roughly ₹191 per litre. For 38 litres from a expeller it is about ₹161. Nothing else has taken place as yet: no work done, no tin involved, no test carried out, no transportation and no margin added.

That gap is mechanical, not marketing, and what a litre of mustard oil should cost in India works the rest of the sum. SatRas wood-pressed black mustard oil is ₹304 a litre, pressed from seed sourced from farmers in Rajasthan and Haryana.

Why published yield figures disagree, and what these numbers cannot settle

Four reasons, and none of them is dishonesty.

• Mass or volume. Some sources quote mass, others volume.
• Content or recovery. Some quote the seed's oil content, others recovery.
• Laboratory or village. Some describe a laboratory press, others a village kolhu.
• National averages. Some mix every extraction route in the country.

Two limits sit on the figures above. They are calculated from published residual-fat percentages rather than measured on a working mill, so read them as a range for the method. And SatRas does not publish a recovery figure for its own kolhu, so nothing here should be taken as a SatRas yield.

Scale is the last caution. USDA's agricultural attache in New Delhi estimated India crushing about 10.5 million tonnes of rapeseed in 2024/25, across village ghanis and solvent plants alike. A national average says little about the tin in front of you.

This article is educational and is not medical advice. Speak to a qualified healthcare professional before making dietary changes, particularly if you have an existing health condition.

Frequently asked questions

How many kilograms of mustard seed does 1 litre of oil need?

About 2.9 to 3.3 kg of seed for a litre from a traditional kolhu, and about 2.4 to 2.8 kg from a screw expeller. The range comes from the seed's own oil content, which sits near 38 to 42 per cent for Indian mustard. Wetter or dirtier seed pushes the requirement higher.

Does yellow mustard seed give more oil than black mustard seed?

Not reliably. Oil content tracks the variety and the growing season more than the seed colour. ICAR-DRMR lists yellow sarson NRCYS-05-02 at 38.2 to 46.5 per cent and Indian mustard varieties from 36.7 to 42.8 per cent, so the ranges overlap heavily. A specific lot can go either way.

Does heating or roasting the seed before pressing increase the yield?

Yes, noticeably. Industrial hot pressing cooks the crushed seed at 80 to 100 degrees Celsius to rupture the cell walls, and the meal that comes off holds about 4 per cent oil against 16 to 20 per cent for cold-pressed cake. Heat also changes the aroma and colour of the finished oil.

Can you press mustard oil at home?

Small table-top presses are sold for it, but they recover less than a commercial press and leave a wetter cake, because they cannot hold the same pressure. FAO puts even a powered traditional ghani at about 100 kg of seed a working day, so a domestic unit is a small-batch device.

Why is mustard seed priced per quintal rather than per kilogram?

Because mandis and the minimum support price both work in quintals, a unit of 100 kg. The MSP for rapeseed and mustard is ₹6,200 a quintal for the 2026-27 marketing season. A powered traditional ghani presses roughly that much seed in a working day, so the unit fits the mill too.

Why do mills quote oil yield in kilograms rather than litres?

Because bulk oil is traded by weight, while a bottle is filled by volume. Mustard oil weighs a little over 900 g to the litre, so a mill quoting 35 per cent recovery means 350 g per kilogram of seed, which is closer to 385 ml. Converting the wrong way understates the yield.