Make cooking oil from coconuts

Coconut oil is one of the healthiest oil you can have. Coconut oil is edible oil from the meat of matured coconuts (Cocos nucifera). Throughout the tropical world, it has provided the primary source of fat in the diets of millions of people for generations. It has various applications in food, medicine, and industry.

For this purpose, a practical method for rural application and based on the subtractive method has been developed since it gives a high percentage of recovery of oil using ordinary household utensils.

Here is a detailed description of the process of making coconut oil:

1. Grate the coconuts. Weigh the grated coconuts. You may need a coconut grater to do this.

2. Press out the cream of the grated meat thru a cheesecloth. Set aside the cream.

3. To the residue of the first pressing, add approximately 1 liter of water per kilo of grated meat used, macerate thoroughly and hand press once more. Repeat procedure but reduce volume of water to only ¼ of that used in previous pressing.

4. Combine cream with the second and third extracts. Filter thru cheesecloth, measure the total volume and set aside.

5. Prepare a saturated salt solution by dissolving salt in water (37 g salt/100 mL water or approximately 2 cups salt in 1 L water). Filter.

6. To the measured combined extract, add saturated salt solution. Volume of salt solution added should be 10% of the volume of the combined extracts. Shake or stir thoroughly for 15 minutes. Transfer to a transparent settling container provided with a faucet or outlet at the bottom and allow the cream to separate for 30 minutes. Withdraw the lower layer, collect the cream and repeat the salt washing by replacing the same volume of water and saturated salt solution used in the first washing. Set aside salt washings.

7. Add water to the salt-washing cream (1:3) and shake or stir for 15 minutes. Stand for 30 minutes or until such time as to allow the cream to separate. Collect the cream and repeat the water washing.

8. Heat the water-washed cream until the "latik" turns brown. Filter again until clear oil is obtained.

Here is a video guide how to make cooking oil from coconuts:

Source: DOST, photo from:africanbraids.biz