Has anyone ever made oil, from seeds they grew?

One of the things I have been thinking about are oils and fats. To be completely self sufficient we need to be able to produce our own oils and fats from things we grow and raise. The animal fats are easy to make. All you have to do is render it and you are good to go. The oils are a different story.
One of the easiest flowers to grow are sunflowers and their seeds make a delicious and very nutritious oil. The large sunflowers will also give you a lot of seeds. I only had 2 large, 4 medium and several smaller ones and I still got a pound of seeds. Imagine how many you would be able to get, planting 20 or 30 of them?
The question though is, how to go about extracting the oil. Researching online I stumbled over a book called “the complete guide to seed and nut oils, growing foraging and pressing”. It’s a great book, but it also puts me in the position to either spend a lot of money or to figure out how to do it the DYI way. Being who I am, I really want to spend as little money as possible doing this. The book introduces you to the oil press machine. There are many on the market at different prices both manual ones and electric ones.
Here at our homestead I already have a press. It’s a fruit press, but the principles are the same. The only difference is, that I will have to Deshell the seeds, then grind them in a blender or food processor before putting the now paste into the press to remove the oil. The leftovers can then either be used as animal feed, or as a scrub for your skin before bathing. The freshly pressed oil and much healthier than commercial oils, that often has had preservatives added to it, in order to preserve shelf life. They are also don’t have a lot of vitamins and mineral in them.  Sunflower oil for example contains high levels of vitamin an and e. Fresh pressed sunflower oil, doesn’t last more and about a month in the fridge, but it should be possible to freeze it, to extend the shelf life.
The two major problems I encounter though, and what I am asking help with is :
1. more blocks for my manual fruit press, so I can press smaller amounts than I usually do. (can only find them in the UK and they are not eager to ship to the US
2. Finding a way to deshel the seeds easily and cheaply. When you look at online you can find several small deshellers that’s cheap, but the problem is that you have to put each seed into the machine individually, which will take a very long time, if you have many seeds. It makes me wonder, if anyone here, are doing it, and have a good effective method of deshelling the seeds?
I am looking forward to hear and discuss this with others.

i’ve made oil from seeds i’ve grown as well as seeds others have grown, and 4 or 5 species of nuts. i’ve used a couple different kinds of oil press for that, and have separately used a couple different cider presses, and i have doubts that a hand-cranked cider/fruit press will be anything other than frustrating to try to extract oil with. i applaud you wanting to produce oil and hope you do - even to prove me wrong about the fruit press!

if not spending much more money is of primary importance, maybe look into float-extracting oil. the next step up would probably be one of the basic piteba-type presses.

also, on the topic of shelling, if i was going to try to produce enough of one kind of oil that it would effect my diet, and without spending too much, i might hope to find a press that could press seeds in-shell, or at least a ground seed material that can include shell. the presscake would still be fine for animal feed, and you skip the labor and/or expense of figuring out how to efficiently shell seeds at that scale.

greg mosser wrote:i’ve made oil from seeds i’ve grown as well as seeds others have grown, and 4 or 5 species of nuts. i’ve used a couple different kinds of oil press for that, and have separately used a couple different cider presses, and i have doubts that a hand-cranked cider/fruit press will be anything other than frustrating to try to extract oil with. i applaud you wanting to produce oil and hope you do - even to prove me wrong about the fruit press!

if not spending much more money is of primary importance, maybe look into float-extracting oil. the next step up would probably be one of the basic piteba-type presses.

also, on the topic of shelling, if i was going to try to produce enough of one kind of oil that it would effect my diet, and without spending too much, i might hope to find a press that could press seeds in-shell, or at least a ground seed material that can include shell. the presscake would still be fine for animal feed, and you skip the labor and/or expense of figuring out how to efficiently shell seeds at that scale.

Thank you so much, I am definitely going to look into those things. Right now we are going back and forward, since my husband thinks I am taking self sufficiency a bit too far LOL. The thing is, that I am very stubborn, so when he tells me something is too far out, and not doable, it makes me want to try doing it even more LOL. I guess we will find out eventually, when I am done doing research. It’s not just to be self sufficient though, it’s also to be able to produce an oil, that I know are healthy without preservatives and 100% organic.

There is nothing wrong with going hardcore, finding ways to do the impossible, even if it's impractical in daily life right now. Supply chains fall apart more easily than we thought was possible. In light of that, having an option for essentials is quite practical, if you ask me.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:There is nothing wrong with going hardcore, finding ways to do the impossible, even if it's impractical in daily life right now. Supply chains fall apart more easily than we thought was possible. In light of that, having an option for essentials is quite practical, if you ask me.

That’s what I am thinking. Oils are the only thing I can’t recreate out of all the things I use in the household. Once that’s there, we are set. It’s also something that gives you a lot of calories, so it’s important. Sunflowers are easy and cheap to grow. I do want to add a coconut tree to the orchard, so we can get oils that way too. We don’t eat grains, so I am growing cassava and sweet potatoes for flour. We have bees and stevia for sweeteners and the plan is to add sugar canes, since we have the right climate. We also have two avocado trees, which also can give us oil. I just need to learn how to do it.

I just realized, that the logical thing to use for oil would be avocados. We have two huge avocado trees in the orchard, which will produce a lot of avocados. I went online and did some research and found this video what shows you have to make pure avocado oil. In the video she purée the avocados first, and then dehydrate it almost completely. During this process the oil starts to leak out. After that she pressed the pulp to get the oil. This is definitely a method I want to try for oil making. It also has so much pulp, that it in this case will make sense using my fruit press to extract the oil.
Here is the video

The Piteba press seems like a deal at <$200, and a better way for seeds/nuts than the wine press.
As far as extra blocks for your wine/cider press, should you go that route, which still maybe useful for small batches of the avocado? Find a local woodworker or woodworking shop (furniture, cabinets) or hardwood lumber supply house, and see if they will make some for you. They look like they are made from maple, birch, or beech wood (all tight-grained, dense woods, and not toxic). And here's an important bit: the length and width (how they look from above as you load the press) are the dimensions that matter, the thickness could be different from the original, but all of them should be the same thickness (in pairs at least).
If you find the right place, they may make something for you from scraps they have on hand and ask for beer money.

Kenneth Elwell wrote:The Piteba press seems like a deal at <$200, and a better way for seeds/nuts than the wine press.
As far as extra blocks for your wine/cider press, should you go that route, which still maybe useful for small batches of the avocado? Find a local woodworker or woodworking shop (furniture, cabinets) or hardwood lumber supply house, and see if they will make some for you. They look like they are made from maple, birch, or beech wood (all tight-grained, dense woods, and not toxic). And here's an important bit: the length and width (how they look from above as you load the press) are the dimensions that matter, the thickness could be different from the original, but all of them should be the same thickness (in pairs at least).
If you find the right place, they may make something for you from scraps they have on hand and ask for beer money.

Thank you, that’s great advice