Butters

Nutmeg Butter

Also: Nutmeg fat, Expressed nutmeg oil, Myristica fat, Oleum myristicae expressum, Myristica fragrans kernel fat.

Not for soap. Nutmeg butter as sold is part fat and part nutmeg essential oil, and no document gives how much of each a butter holds. A lye figure worked out from the fat alone would call for too much lye for the butter as bought, so it is kept here as reference and left out of the calculator.

Published values

Saponification value	not published
Iodine value	—
INS (SAP − IV)	—
Melting point	—
Unsaponifiable matter	—

A bar made of 100 % Nutmeg Butter

The soap qualities are derived from the fatty-acid profile, which is below. They are shown here only for records the calculator can use.

This record is disputed. No measured saponification value for nutmeg butter was found in a primary document; a lye figure derived from the fatty-acid profile of its fat comes to about 224-230 mg KOH/g. Nutmeg seed also contains essential oil, and whatever share of it and of other unsaponifiable matter ends up in a pressed butter takes no lye; no document read gives that share. A derived figure can therefore ask for more lye than a real nutmeg butter uses. Keep it to a small part of a recipe or ask the supplier for a measured saponification value.

Fatty-acid profile

Fatty acid		Published range, %	Used
Capric acid	C10:0 · saturated	≤ 0.11	0.1
Lauric acid	C12:0 · saturated	0.4–2.3	1.3
Myristic acid	C14:0 · saturated	71.8–87.7	79.8
Palmitic acid	C16:0 · saturated	4.8–14.3	9.6
Palmitoleic acid	C16:1	≤ 4.8	4.8
Stearic acid	C18:0 · saturated	0.4–1.2	0.8
Oleic acid	C18:1	4–5.5	4.8
Linoleic acid	C18:2	0.6–1.8	1.2

Where these numbers come from

PlantFAdb (Michigan State University), based on the Seed Oil Fatty Acids (SOFA) database of the Max Rubner-Institut — PlantFAdb datasets for Myristica fragrans (plant 10764) · read 2026-09-24

Datasets #22012 (1984), #20738 (1969), #21168 (1971) and #15542 (1996); #23555 (2002) not used.

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (The Japanese Pharmacopoeia, 18th Edition, English version) — JP XVIII, Crude Drugs and Related Drugs: 'Nutmeg (Myristicae Semen)'. · read 2026-09-24

Essential oil content: 'When the test is performed with 10.0 g of pulverized Nutmeg, the essential oil content is not less than 0.5 mL.'

The expressed fat of the nutmeg seed, mostly trimyristin: myristic acid is 72-88 % of its fatty acids. Fatty acids are PlantFAdb's datasets for Myristica fragrans (plant 10764): 'Butter from plants' (1984; SOFA TAB_006023): C12:0 0.4, C14:0 71.8, C16:1 4.8, C16:0 14.3, C18:2 1.5, C18:1 5.2, C18:0 1.2 (99.2 %); 'Fette und Lipoide' (Springer 1969; TAB_006027): C10:0 0.11, C12:0 2.3, C14:0 87.7, C16:0 4.8, C18:2 0.6, C18:1 4.0, C18:0 0.5; 'Positional distribution of medium chain length fatty acids in dicotyledon seed triglycerides' (1971; TAB_009666; triglyceride fatty acids, partly converted from mol %): C10:0 0.1, C12:0 2.1, C14:0 86.3, C16:0 5.3, C18:2 0.7, C18:1 4.9, C18:0 0.6; 'Survey of seed oils for use as diesel fuels' (1996; TAB_006026; 27.7 % oil): C12:0 0.4, C14:0 84.9, C16:0 6.6, C18:2 1.8, C18:1 5.5, C18:0 0.4. Not used: 'Studies on six indigenous seed oils' (2002), with 6.2 % oil, 45.1 % linoleic acid and an 83 % total, nothing like nutmeg butter and probably another material. NO SAPONIFICATION VALUE was found in an allowed document. The fatty acids alone imply about 224-230 mg KOH/g, but that describes only the glyceride part: the seed also carries an essential oil (the Japanese Pharmacopoeia's Nutmeg monograph requires 'not less than 0.5 mL' of essential oil from 10.0 g of pulverized nutmeg), and no document read gives how much essential oil or other unsaponifiable matter ends up in expressed nutmeg butter, so a value derived from this profile may overstate the lye for real nutmeg butter by an unknown amount. INCI left for review: CosIng's 'Myristica Fragrans Kernel Oil' is described only as 'the oil obtained from the kernel of the Nutmeg' and lists CAS 8007-12-3 / 8008-45-5, without saying whether it is the expressed fat; the steam-distilled essential oil has its own entry (Myristica Fragrans Fruit Oil).

This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.