DIY Vegetable Oil

Vegetable oil can be used for many purposes, including cooking, making margarine, or making soap. Used vegetable oil can be saved to make bio-diesel. Due to the time involved in making the oil, and the inherent value of the fresh oil it is not economical to make oil just for the purpose of making bio-diesel. Instead, it is recommended that used oil be washed before converting to bio-diesel. But that's another topic. Let's get on to making your own vegetable oil!

 There are commercial scale ways to make vegetable oil, but this blog post focuses on a do-it-yourself method using a hand-powered oil press. I use the Piteba oil press. It can be used to press oils from sunflower seeds, soybeans, canola, safflower, walnuts, almonds, and many other nut and bean sources.

To set up the oil press, you first need to create a funnel for the seeds using a plastic bottle, as shown in the picture to the left. You'll also need to set up a jar to collect the oil. The oil press comes with a small lamp, but you will need to provide the lamp oil. I've included a link below. Colored lamp oil works best because it burns hotter... it also looks cooler! The press works by heating up the seeds just before they are slowly pressed through a small opening at the end. As the crank is turned, oil comes out of the opening above the jar, and a dry mash is expelled from the end. This dry mash makes a great high-protein food source for chickens or can be used for cooking. I prefer to use sunflower seeds with the shells included because the shells are high in protein (which is good for the chickens) and in terms of oil-by-weight, it is not worth the extra cost to by pre-shelled seeds. This time of year (late spring) you can buy a 40 lb bag of seeds from PetCo or Fred Meyer for $30, or from the link below for $24, or you can find them in late Fall for as low as $17 for a 40 lb bag. A 40 lb bag will produce about 2 gallons of sunflower oil. At today's prices, that's about $0.09/oz, in the fall it drops to about $0.06/oz. Just for comparison, I've included a link to sunflower oil on Amazon, at $18.78 for 96 oz. Making it yourself saves around 50%... and you know exactly what went into it!
When you press your own oil, you will get some sediment in the oil. This will eventually settle out after a few days to a week, or you can "siphon" it through a rope. The oil will wick up the rope and down into a collection jar, leaving the sediment behind, as shown in the picture on the right.

If you choose you let your oil settle out over time, you can either siphon or pour the clean oil off the top or just use it as is. Personally, I like to use the sediment for oiling the grill, because it doesn't affect the flavor from the grill. If anything, it adds a pleasant smokey flavor. The picture to the right shows some sunflower oil that has separated after a few days. It has a beautiful golden color.
Making your own oil can be fun, rewarding, and cost effective. It's especially nice knowing exactly what went into your oil, knowing that you are saving the environment by eliminating the need to ship and package the oil, and you can experiment with a wide variety of nuts and seeds to see which oil you like best. So go give it a try. And remember, you can save your used oil to make bio-diesel. Even if you don't want to tackle the project of making your own bio-diesel, someone will buy the used oil from you for a decent price. I have seen used cooking oil selling from $1.80-$3.60/gallon.