Hydrogenated Coconut Oil

About This Product

Hydrogenated coconut oil is refined coconut oil that has been hydrogenated to raise its melting point and remove the small unsaturated fraction that limits its shelf life. It is a white solid at room temperature and melts to a clear, mild liquid. Coconut oil is a lauric fat, dominated by the C12 and C14 chains, and hydrogenation does not change that: it only removes the handful of unsaturated bonds, lifting the melting point from around 24 degrees Celsius to roughly 32 to 34 and taking the oxidative induction time up with it. What matters in use is the shape of the melting curve rather than the melting point itself. Lauric fats have a very narrow solid-to-liquid transition, so the fat is almost fully solid a few degrees below body temperature and almost fully liquid a few degrees above it. That is what gives a coconut-based coating its brittle snap and its cool, clean melt with no waxy film, and what makes it crystallise fast enough to set a chocolate-style coating in a cooling tunnel. The limitation is the same property: lauric fats are incompatible with cocoa butter in any meaningful proportion, so a coating built on this fat has to be a compound rather than real chocolate, and it must be kept away from moisture and lipase, which release soapy-tasting free lauric acid. It is used in compound coatings and chocolate-style crispy shells, in ice cream and frozen dessert fats, in cream and fat powders, in biscuit fillings, and in confectionery where a fast-setting, sharp-melting fat is needed. Bio Green Oils and Fats supplies hydrogenated coconut oil to specification on melting point, iodine value, free fatty acid, colour and peroxide value, in 20 kg cartons or 25 kg bags.