I have been considering the purchase of a Piteba oil press lately. I would love to be able to press my own cooking oil and further reduce my dependance on industrial food. I have read some posative things other places online. Just wondering if any of the Permies crowd has anything (good or bad) to say about them.

Here is a link to the product page at Bountiful Gardens
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=SOI-9418

I have a piteba press. I wanted to be able to have the ability to press seeds/nuts into oil. It really takes quite a bit of grunt work to produce oil so you need to have a stable or dedicated place to mount the press. Hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower, and styrian pumpkin seeds have all produced oil for me. You do have to filter or let settle for a clear product. My other half is gluten intolerant so the nut cake that is watse I want to play with and see if I can dehydrate it a bit more (it is almost dry) and come up with a useable flour but I haven't done much to that end.
I have seen them offered for less than Bountiful has them at so google about a bit.

For more info, go to Piteba.

Be sure to click on:
* Report
* Performance
* Seeds

They also have user's manuals online, and even a video:



They even have instructions to rig it to a bicycle (under "Tips")

I would love to have one too! I saw it in the Bountiful Garden's catalog and circled it along with a list of other things haha I already have a stainless steel manual juicer and a manual flour mill from Wondermill, so this would be the ultimate edition! but im lowon funds, let me know if you guys find a great deal or a two for less deal who knows!

Welcome to the forum Blaine. I ended up buying mine on e-bay. Still had a hard time justifying the purchase. I used my locavore reasoning since filbert orchards are within my 100 mile circle.

thank you! Im so thankful for this forum, its amazing! Im still dealing with alltoomuch to get Amazon out of hair from buying the flourmill on their credit system(bad idea)! But after that im sure theoil press will be on my mind, and with the same reasoning lol, there's a crowd of walnut/almond trees and wild seeded grapes nearby, here in vacaville CA. the manual juicer has produced sunflower seed oil once, but it was strenuous!

Robert Ray wrote:I have a piteba press. I wanted to be able to have the ability to press seeds/nuts into oil. It really takes quite a bit of grunt work to produce oil so you need to have a stable or dedicated place to mount the press. Hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower, and styrian pumpkin seeds have all produced oil for me. You do have to filter or let settle for a clear product. My other half is gluten intolerant so the nut cake that is watse I want to play with and see if I can dehydrate it a bit more (it is almost dry) and come up with a useable flour but I haven't done much to that end.
I have seen them offered for less than Bountiful has them at so google about a bit.

I have been wanting one of these for a while because I have macadamia trees. Macadamia oil is supposed to be superior to olive oil. I had been thinking until recently that when I get my press I would just give the cake press to the chickens. I'll still do this for my lower-grade nuts, but I had been thinking that if you use good nuts and put the cake press into the food processor that it would be a good high protein flour. Seems to me that defatted nut flours would be closer to wheat flour, but in searching I havent seen much info on this or people doing this with their nuts.

ak han wrote:

Robert Ray wrote:I have a piteba press. I wanted to be able to have the ability to press seeds/nuts into oil. It really takes quite a bit of grunt work to produce oil so you need to have a stable or dedicated place to mount the press. Hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower, and styrian pumpkin seeds have all produced oil for me. You do have to filter or let settle for a clear product. My other half is gluten intolerant so the nut cake that is watse I want to play with and see if I can dehydrate it a bit more (it is almost dry) and come up with a useable flour but I haven't done much to that end.
I have seen them offered for less than Bountiful has them at so google about a bit.

I have been wanting one of these for a while because I have macadamia trees. Macadamia oil is supposed to be superior to olive oil. I had been thinking until recently that when I get my press I would just give the cake press to the chickens. I'll still do this for my lower-grade nuts, but I had been thinking that if you use good nuts and put the cake press into the food processor that it would be a good high protein flour. Seems to me that defatted nut flours would be closer to wheat flour, but in searching I havent seen much info on this or people doing this with their nuts.

I definitely would find a use for macadamia press cake. It should make a good flour for cakes, cookies, and brownies.

Has anyone tried to build the bike-ified version?

The piteba press now has an attachment for making olive oil - https://www.piteba.com/eng/olives.html

Apparently for some olives, you can press direct. But for others you just use the press to make the olive past and still have to press the oil out.



I think it's time I splashed out and did some experimenting...

This is very, very tempting. 

I noticed Uprising seeds has it for sale this year.  But I'm thinking with the Canadian dollar the way it is, it might be more affordable to get it from Europe.  It's still a pipe dream as I'll have to save up for it.  But I'm growing lots of squash, safflower, flax and sunflowers this year - is it really worth it?  Is the oil I get out of it worth the energy put into extracting it? 

What 'oil' does the lamp run on?

Do I have to do anything to the oil after I extract it?

What does one do with the oil cakes afterwards?  Do they have any use?

I ended up ordering it direct from Piteba.  With shipping, the coffee grinder attachment, and everything, it came to a lot less than ordering it from the US.  I was also glad that it should take about two months to get here, maybe three, because I'm in the middle of fruit harvesting and I won't have time to play with my oil press for a month or two.  Besides, the sunflowers and safflowers should be ready and dry by then.  Of course, it arrived in 4 business days instead.  Ah well, can't complain about fast service... I suppose.  But there it is, sitting there, laughing at me, waiting for me to come and make some oil. 

I have to say, it looks amazing.  Very cleverly designed and packaged so that it ships in a small box.  The instructions are a bit daunting and I understand from reviews I've read that it has something of a learning curve.  It looks like each batch of seeds needs some fine adjustment to compensate for moisture and oil content - but that's true of working with any natural product.

In the meantime, here's an article from plants for the future about oil crops.  Many of the oils aren't food safe without extra processing, so I won't be putting them through the press.  But very interesting to see the wide range of plants that can produce oil.


Here's the picture from the piteba site.

André Troylilas wrote:Has anyone tried to build the bike-ified version?

No, but it should be simple.  The hand crank is simply attached with a through bolt.  You would need a hub to fit the shaft.  Most pressing is 40-60 rpm, so gear the pedals accordingly. 

R Scott wrote:

ak han wrote:

Robert Ray wrote:I have a piteba press. I wanted to be able to have the ability to press seeds/nuts into oil. It really takes quite a bit of grunt work to produce oil so you need to have a stable or dedicated place to mount the press. Hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower, and styrian pumpkin seeds have all produced oil for me. You do have to filter or let settle for a clear product. My other half is gluten intolerant so the nut cake that is watse I want to play with and see if I can dehydrate it  a bit more (it is almost dry) and come up with a useable flour but I haven't done much to that end.
  I have seen them offered for less than Bountiful has them at so google about a bit.

I have been wanting one of these for a while because I have macadamia trees. Macadamia oil is supposed to be superior to olive oil. I had been thinking until recently that when I get my press I would just give the cake press to the chickens. I'll still do this for my lower-grade nuts, but I had been thinking that if you use good nuts and put the cake press into the food processor that it would be a good high protein flour. Seems to me that defatted nut flours would be closer to wheat flour, but in searching I havent seen much info on this or people doing this with their nuts.

I definitely would find a use for macadamia press cake.  It should make a good flour for cakes, cookies, and brownies.

I have been experimenting with making different types of flour. I use barely and sunflower seeds (unpressed) so far. You can do it with a cheap blender. The trick is to not let the blender over heat, so like pulse and shake the blender for like 15 seconds (or until the motor just starts feeling warm) walk away for 5 minutes, come back, repeat. I don't have pictures right now, but it worked well and I would do it again.

R Ranson: How exciting! I admit, I'm a wee bit jealous. It's definitely on my wish list. Let us know how it goes!

Here is a link to a gentleman who rigged it up to an exercise bike for faster production. He's getting about half a liter every 15 minutes! Of particular interest is his modified nozzle/cap. The original nozzle is just a standard iron pipe reducer, which can cause problems because the waste shells that come out harden something akin to concrete the moment you stop cranking. Because the pipe reducer has internal threads, the ground hulls actually lock into the threads and solidify inside the nozzle. Many folks need to soak the nozzle in water for a day just to unplug it. This gentleman has had a custom tapered nozzle machined out of stainless steel, that is completely smooth inside. To get that rock hard sunflower waste out he just gives it a good wack with a bolt and it pops right out!

My mother used to make a walnut cake only for special occasions when I was young. Us kids ground the walnuts, and she used about 4 eggs to hold it together. The nuts were the
'flour' and shortening. I think the remains after producing oil could be used immediately for cake or crackers or in some bread or nut-milk recipe, rather than go through the drying out process to make flour. Maybe even as a facial scrub? a suet cake?

I'm curious, what is the result of pressing roasted coffee beans? Coffee Oil?

Eric Thomas wrote:I'm curious, what is the result of pressing roasted coffee beans? Coffee Oil?

There is a special attachment that transforms the press into a coffee grinder. 

It's funny as this is also the cap that allows it to press oil from olives.

Haven't tried it yet, but am hoping to very, very soon.

Every time a Permies daily-ish has a subject that I know I'll want to come back to in the future, I re-file it into my "Permaculture" folder.  It's getting full!  Pressing my own nut and seed oils is definitely up there on the list of projects I'd like to tackle.  Throughout the year, I find myself going through about 2-3 gallons of olive oil, probably the same amount of avocado oil (for mayo), about a pint each of walnut, hazelnut and sesame oil, then there's the once or twice a year when I do a deep frying extravaganza, and use about 2 gallons of peanut oil (but I would prefer to use duck fat, beef tallow, or lard over peanut oil going forward), and that's probably about it.  The rest of the time we use animal fats.  Would it be worthwhile to own my own press for this somewhat small amount?  Also, it does not appear to do avocado, although maybe it would work, if the dried pieces were small enough, with the olive attachment?  I will check back on this particular thread to see more experiences and recommendations.

On a side note, responding to a couple comments about the dry nut cakes:  I bought a bag of walnut flour from a walnut oil place in France last year.  The man said it was a good replacement for regular flour, and gluten free.  PLEASE, don't confuse this with ground walnuts, or walnut meal, as I did.  Well, I didn't really, as I know the difference, but I thought I'd try it out in a Moroccan cookie recipe that called for ground walnuts.  They turned out very dry and bland.  They needed regular ground walnuts for the fat/moisture.  I haven't tried it in anything else.  The flour is now languishing in my freezer.

Julia Child has a cake recipe called Le Brantôme (Brantôme is the name of a small town, and its surrounding region, in France.  The area is famous for its walnuts, and that's where I bought the walnut flour, actually!).  I'm sure this cake is similar to the cake described by Erica Daly, however, again, DON'T try replacing the ground walnuts with the walnut flour remaining after pressing out the oil.  Maybe it could be added as part of the regular wheat flour.  I've made the cake several times, and it's amazing.  But, I prefer to make a buttercream flavored with walnut liqueur to frost it.  Here's a link to the recipe online (hey!  It's in the Missoulian), but it can also be found in her book, "From Julia Child's Kitchen."  Walnut Cake Recipe

I wonder if I could remove honey from honeycomb with it?

I was hoping to find this thread! The oil press is on my to buy list. I was planning to grow kenaf and black oil sunflower as my feedstock but then I found out that kenaf's near cousin okra is better. Okra seed is 40% oil compared to just under 20% for kenaf. At average 7.7 lbs. per gallon it will take about 100 lbs of seed for a years worth of cooking. Okra has other advantages as well. It will grow to seed in shorter growing seasons, it has an edible pod as well as leaves, makes more seed per plant and is easier to shell out of the pod. As for what to put in the burner, When I first looked at this years ago it showed the woman using cooking oil. this time around I have seen lamp oil recommended. I don't want lamp oil that close to my food! Has anyone measured the temperature of the oil as it comes from the press? Piteba says it is cold press oil, others have raised droughts. 120 degrees is the top limit to be able to call it cold pressed. If you are going to cook with it I don't a problem, salad oil, maybe.