I have not used this expeller, but it is on my wish list on Amazon. There is a person who had posted in the Farming, Gardening and Homesteading section about owning and using one. She was happy with it's function. Hopefully, she will see this thread and post info. for you. I hope to get one this summer sometime.

http://www.amazon.com/Piteba-Nut-Seed-Expeller-press/dp/B004H2SDTM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366826927&sr=8-1&keywords=seed+expeller

 

I'll share with you some of what I've learned so far in my research on the oil expellers and my plans.

Yield: Most oil seeds contain between 35 and 45% oil. So for a 10 pound bag of seeds you would yield about 4 pounds of oil which somes to 51 ounces of oil for 10 pounds of seeds. That is assuming an excellent efficiency of oil removal which I do not believe can be achieved with a small manual press. I am planning, based on 900 calculations (that believe me no one wants to see, reads like a nightmare of confusion ) on being able to get about 38 ounces of oil from each 10 pounds of seeds. If I get more I'll have a party but I don't want to grossly over-estimate my yield.

The thing I haven't seen much on is that you should NOT waste the seed pulp left after extracting the oil. It can be used in cooking, baking, and with some of the seeds, just snacking. Many of the seeds are highly nutritious and you don't want to waste the nutrition left in the pulp. For an example I'll use Black Oil Sunflower Seeds. They are cheap, relatively easy to grow, the oil works well in cooking (with the exception of deep frying) and are currently eaten whole and as sunflower butter (similar to peanut butter.) Therefore, they are a highly usable seed pulp product.
Nutritionally, a one ounce serving of black oil sunflower seeds has 37% of the vitamin E you need, a host of the B-complex vitamins, and several needed minerals. Some of the vitamins will travel with the oil but the majority will be left in the seed pulp. There is also 5 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber in each ounce. You could use it to make a version of "peanut" butter, you could use it in baking, adding it to muffins and whole grain breads, you could use it as a thickener in soups and stews. All of those would allow you to make valuable use of the nutrition of the seeds.

One of the complaints people have about nuts and seeds is the high calorie content. That is due to the oil in the seeds. A one ounce serving of black oil sunflower seeds has 166 calories - 120 of those are fat calories. So after you expel the oil you are left with a nutritious, low calorie food source.

Well, that's what I've found so far in my research other than collecting a bit of information on the how-to's which you have in your video. My next step is to get an expeller this summer (I hope) and put my plan into action. I planted a bunch of sunflowers as the beginning of my plan, if I don't get the expeller and get to make oil this year I can trade the dried blooms (with seeds) for eggs as chickens love to play with them and eat the seeds.

Please post and let us know if you get one and how you like it. I love learning from the other members here.

 

I haven't used the Piteba either, but it's on my short list. Years back I did make a hydraulic oil press using a diesel cylinder liner and piston and a hydraulic press. I was growing castor beans at the time and experimenting with making my own biodiesel.

 

Mike, what kind of safety precautions did you take with the castor beans? I would have guessed you needed to be extremely careful not to get ricin poisoning.

How thick was the oil obtained? My understanding is that the thickness of castor oil makes it a better choice as engine lubricant than engine fuel.

 

I've had a Piteba expeller for several years and use it for pressing oil from pecans. A mechanical press can run into thousands of dollars, so the Piteba is a viable alternative for home oil needs. In pressing shelled pecans, you get about 1/4 to 1/3 oil by volume from the nuts. The oil then has to be filtered (I use coffee filters), then I let it settle for a day or two before before pouring off the finished oil, then store it in the refrigerator.

The oil has a fantastic taste, BTW, especially as salad dressing when combined with homemade vinegar and spices. Besides being edible, in a pinch the oil could also be used for lubricant or lamp oil.

The press cake, what's left after the oil is extracted, can be used in baking or fed to chickens or other livestock.

Like everything else done on a small scale at home, it takes a fair amount of time and work. All in all, the Piteba is well worth having, as it offers an economical way to press your own oil from suitable crops or nuts.

 

Could you please describe how you do that? I posted a thread a while back asking if anyone had experience making pecan oil because I LOVE it - but it is soooo expensive ($30 for a regular bottle) and wanted to know how to make your own.

Do you shell them first? Just crack the shells? etc..

thanks!

 

I think you all are on the right track--oil is a necessity. Walnut oil is very good, also peanut oil. I've been wondering how you get all those sunflower seeds shelled so you can press them...

 

Supposedly, you can use a Corona grain mill to dehull them and then a fan type affair to winnow them. The seeds have to be dried first, if the hulls aren't dry, they won't crack appropriately. They have to be graded so they are similar in size, I've got different size of hardware cloth and will make grading boxes using it.

I say supposedly, because that is part of my experiment toward the end of this summer. I haven't tried it yet. Peanuts are another possibility for me for an oil source, I haven't worked on a shelling plan for them yet though.

Here is a link to the place I got the information about the hulling process from.
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/oilpress.html

 

I want one !

 

I have three pitabas, one each for each summer kitchen and one for my basement kitchen. I bought my first so I could press evening primrose seed oil two years ago. It does take a bit of practice...mainly to know just how dry the seeds need to be. Too moist and they jam up the press, too dry and the oil doesn't extract well. After you use it several times though you'll be able to tell the perfect dry by feel and even (for some seeds) but they way they sound. My favorite seed for extraction now is pumpkin and squash seeds, mainly because I usually have so many of them but it is also just a good oil. I do a lot of wild oils with velvet leaf again being the one I use the most. Right now we farmers fight to keep velvet leaf out of our fields. In fact in some states it is illegal to plant because it is so invasive. But I feel if TSHTF it will be a plant that is used much more. It can be ground for flour and expressed for oil AND it is darn hard to kill off. Also its flour and oil is good tasting...very nutty.

If I could afford a larger press I would get one, but a few hundred dollars is much better than a few thousands. The ones I have are well constructed and work well as long as the seeds are the right dryness. It does need to be oiled itself so some of the oil goes back into running the machinery. Also it needs to be cleaned IMEDIATELY after use or else you have to soak it for a long time and then re-oil it just like any cast iron pot. I love mine and selling evening primrose oil at the farmer's market is a great way of making extra money. You can ask almost any price because it is so good for a mood lifter and people line up to buy it every time I have some.

 

It sounds like I should go ahead and take the plunge and buy one. I will order it next pay period and let you know how it works out

 

Conman2U said

I was thinking it would be cool to have a way to make your own cooking oil

It's my understanding that storing cooking oil long-term is next to impossible, so I have been making tentative plans to produce my own cooking oil so I can have some after TEOTWAWKI. This year I'll make my first attempt. I have a 5-pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds which I'm going to plant when it's warm enough (right now we still have some snow on the ground here where I live). I plan to buy a small oil press, and I found the Piteba oil press on the Bountiful Gardens Web site a few weeks ago. $164. Link.

In a few months, I'll let everyone here know how this project turned out!

 

RandiTS said:

Could you please describe how you do that? I posted a thread a while back asking if anyone had experience making pecan oil because I LOVE it - but it is soooo expensive ($30 for a regular bottle) and wanted to know how to make your own.

Do you shell them first? Just crack the shells? etc..

thanks!

I originally tried just cracking the pecans and running them through the press, but the shells absorbed so much of the oil it would just jam up the press, the pressure essentially turning the cracked shells and meats into particle board. So the pecans have to be shelled and cleaned first, increasing the amount of time and work exponentially. But we have hundreds of native pecans, and in a SHTF everyone would have lots of free time in the evenings or on nasty winter days to clean pecans so they could be run through the press. And the resulting pecan oil is excellent!

Hope this helps.

 

RandiTS said:


I originally tried just cracking the pecans and running them through the press, but the shells absorbed so much of the oil it would just jam up the press, the pressure essentially turning the cracked shells and meats into particle board. So the pecans have to be shelled and cleaned first, increasing the amount of time and work exponentially. But we have hundreds of native pecans, and in a SHTF everyone would have lots of free time in the evenings or on nasty winter days to clean pecans so they could be run through the press. And the resulting pecan oil is excellent!

Hope this helps.

That is perfect! My husband and my Mother both find shelling pecans relaxing... I find that they are rather strange for that little habit. We have access to hundreds of pecans at my MIL's property - will get the kids to picking them up next year and give this a try... My bottle of pecan oil is almost gone and I am sad right now..