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homestead

harvesting sunflower oil yourself

paul wheaton

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Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 17 years ago

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This is a fantastic article explaining what sunflower seed to shop for, how to seperate the shells in large quantity, how to make an oil press, etc.

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/oilpress.html

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Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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fascinating. I have considered growing sunflower seeds because of the superb animal feed. I figured I could allow my goats to forage the stalks and leaves after harvest and have seeds in hulls for both human and animal consumption to use as a concentrate. I always assumed that extracting the oil would be too time consuming on a small scale basis. I guess I was wrong! This makes and acre of sunflower look even more appealing! It looks as though the mighty sunflower deserves some serious consideration.

[img]http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n52/havlik1/permie%20pics2/permiepotrait3pdd.jpg[/img]

"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

paul wheaton

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Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 15 years ago

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So if you have lots of lard - how much oil do you suppose a family would use in a year? A gallon?

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Brenda Groth

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Location: North Central Michigan

posted 15 years ago

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looks like you kinda have to be a mechanic to get that thing made..to press the oil..i'd rather eat the seeds..although i do like sunflower oil i prefer olive oil..and can't grow them here.

Brenda

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Nicholas Covey

Posts: 182

Location: Missouri/Iowa border

posted 15 years ago

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I actually ordered some oilseed sunflowers this year. Ive got a row of them in the ground. We'll See how they do and I'll report back if it's a success.

paul wheaton

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Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 15 years ago

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Quittrack wrote:
I actually ordered some oilseed sunflowers this year. Ive got a row of them in the ground. We'll See how they do and I'll report back if it's a success.

Sweet!

Take pictures!

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Nicholas Covey

Posts: 182

Location: Missouri/Iowa border

posted 15 years ago

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Nothing to see but mulch right now. (we're in zone 4 here and spring was kinda late anyhow). As soon as I have something to show, I will.

Leah Sattler

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posted 15 years ago

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are they up! I planted some eating type sunflowers here and there througout my garden but like many other things I have planted here it appears that they never even pushed up through the ground

I guess will have to try again. I am having much better luck with some of the resown things, maybe the problem was all the rain.

[img]http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n52/havlik1/permie%20pics2/permiepotrait3pdd.jpg[/img]

"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Brenda Groth

pollinator

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Location: North Central Michigan

posted 15 years ago

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i'm kinda in zone 4/5 here too..my sunflowers from the bird seed have sprouted all over..but they aren't big yet..we had a hard freeze last week, but didn't hurt them at all.

i too think the press looks rather complicated

Brenda

Bloom where you are planted.
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

Joel Hollingsworth

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Location: Oakland, CA

posted 15 years ago

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Yes, that does look overly complicated.

I'm imagining a press that's just strong cord (fishing line? 50 strands of 150 lb test adds up to the 3 tons from the article...) laced back and forth between two toothed wheels, and a tube of cheesecloth in the center. With one wheel fixed and a lever on the other, twisting will squeeze the contents, like wringing laundry.

You'd want the wheel teeth to be hooks facing away from each other, and to be smooth enough for some slippage to equalize tension. Some careful forethought with the rules of simple machines would help to choose proper dimensions.

One nice feature is that the cords get closer together as pressure increases, so that at the end of pressing the cheesecloth doesn't have to span much of a gap. Another is that screw action will pull the two wheels together as wringing action brings the walls in, so that not much work is done to shear the mash...most of it will go directly to compression. Unless I'm missing something, these forces will balance themselves out if all you do is twist.

A bushing that lets the axle of the free wheel spin and slide, and a rope or something to hold the lever in place, and you're done.

"the qualities of these bacteria, like the heat of the sun, electricity, or the qualities of metals, are part of the storehouse of knowledge of all men. They are manifestations of the laws of nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none." SCOTUS, Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kale Inoculant Co.

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posted 15 years ago

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The press is actually one of the most simple to make. It is used here in Indonesia very often to make VCO (Virgin Coconut Oil). All it is, is a solid stand with a plate, a cylinder and a bottle jack. You fill the cylinder up put it on the stand and put the jack in then use the jack to press out the oil. Hardest part is making the cylinder though here in Indo we have the advantage of workshops that will make what ever you ask.

jeremiah bailey

Posts: 343

posted 15 years ago

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Anyone with a welder and metal cutting tools can build the frame of the press. The cylinder can be a length of steel pipe with a plate welded on to close one end. A welding shop should be able to do this relatively cheaply. All they should need is the materials and to look at the description and pictures in the article. I'd estimate $50-75 US for the frame and cylinder, give or take some for the price of steel. The 3-ton jack can be had at most auto parts, hardware, or tool stores for about $10-15 US. You should be able to multi purpose the jack and have it available for other uses as well.

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manitoulin mary

Posts: 6

Location: Manitoulin Island, Ontario zone 5a

posted 14 years ago

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My genius friend, Mat Redsell, presses literally tonns of sunflower oil in his backyard shed in Port Burwell, Ontario. He runs his car on it , uses it to run heaters and the cookstove in his house, and used to make alot of biodesil out of it, but he is getting away from the biodesil now.-too toxic

He is interested in selling in his local area food grade sunflower oil from sunflowers grown on his neighbor's farm - currently working through the health regs on that.

He has 2 really big but simple oil presses and runs them off of solar power. I think he separates the oil from the pulp using the spin cycle of an old washing machine that he converted to the purpose.

He also built his own windmill and is constantly inventing a variety of sustainable living thingamabobs, like sunken passive solar greenhouses and commercial cargo bicycles. He grows nearly all his own food on a city lot in a generally permaculture way and is a champion of the urban chicken.

Check out his website at www. continuo.com. I am sure he would be willing to talk to serious sunflower oil pressers or wanbe pressers.

Mary

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich; it is a way to be rich.
-Paul Hawkin

Joel Hollingsworth

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Location: Oakland, CA

posted 14 years ago

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manitoulin mary wrote:he is getting away from the biodesil now.-too toxic

Interesting. If he made it with moonshine rather than wood alcohol, I think it wouldn't be much more toxic than wine.

Once your digestive enzymes lyse all the ester bonds, you get back whatever alcohol had been put in there. I think your body can make up for the missing glycerine just fine, and most people are OK with reasonable accidental exposure to ethanol.

manitoulin mary

Posts: 6

Location: Manitoulin Island, Ontario zone 5a

posted 14 years ago

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Actually, Mat is concerned about the chemical ingredients other than the sunflower oil he has to use in order to make the biodiesil, as well as the toxic left over byproducts. This process is not earth friendly.Also, it may well be that a time will come in the not-so-distance when the needed chemical ingredients are not easily available.

Sunflower oil itself can be made from all natural, safe ingredients.This is ,of course, ignoring what went into mining and making the metal parts of the machines used, etc.

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich; it is a way to be rich.
-Paul Hawkin

Joel Hollingsworth

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Location: Oakland, CA

posted 14 years ago

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manitoulin mary wrote:
Actually, Mat is concerned about the chemical ingredients other than the sunflower oil he has to use in order to make the biodiesel, as well as the toxic left over byproducts.

Yeah, I was discussing the wood alcohol (or methyl alcohol, among other names), which is the major other ingredient. The only other ingredient is lye (or a similar catalyst), and the byproducts are glycerine and soap.

All I meant to say is that, done right, it could be a very earth-friendly process, using only local agricultural products.

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Location: Ithaca, NY

posted 14 years ago

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Brenda Groth wrote:
looks like you kinda have to be a mechanic to get that thing made..to press the oil..

If you have more money that time and/or welding equipment, I just discovered an off-the-shelf product that can do this (and also pumpkin seeds, and others). I haven't tried it, so this is not an endorsement, just for info:
http://www.piteba.com/eng/index_eng.htm

Greg Nelson

Posts: 148

posted 14 years ago

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That looks like a sturdy, simple machine. How much is 100.95 eu in US dollars, I wonder?

paul wheaton

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Posts: 52478

Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 14 years ago

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Wow, I think each one of those inventions would make a for a good thread here.

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Jackie Frobese

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Posts: 94

Location: New Hampshire, USA zone 5/6

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posted 10 years ago

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rockguy Hatfield wrote:That looks like a sturdy, simple machine. How much is 100.95 eu in US dollars, I wonder?

When I looked at the link for the oil expeller it listed the price as 74,87 euro which yahoo told me is about $95 us

I should add that I'm a bit confused about the comma, is it like a decimal? If not then the price may be more like $9500 us

Jackie
~ Be the change!

Josey Hains

Posts: 92

Location: AB, Canada, Zone 3

posted 10 years ago

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Jackie Frobese wrote:

rockguy Hatfield wrote:That looks like a sturdy, simple machine. How much is 100.95 eu in US dollars, I wonder?

When I looked at the link for the oil expeller it listed the price as 74,87 euro which yahoo told me is about $95 us

I should add that I'm a bit confused about the comma, is it like a decimal? If not then the price may be more like $9500 us

The comma is like a decimal

Dawn Hoff

pollinator

Posts: 533

Location: Andalucía, Spain

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posted 10 years ago

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I saw that Mark Sheperd grows sunflowers, which are made into oil and sold to the local restaurants (for deep friers), and he then gets the used oil back, which he uses in his cars and farm machines. Brilliant! But I'm guessing that he has an oilpress a bit larger than the duch one there. I've seen olive pressers that look very much like the nutpresser there - but they are hooked up to at drilling machine or another motor and yet they can't take very much (like we couldn't use it for our olive trees, because the olives would go bad before we were done).

If I had plenty access to lard and olive oil, I would only use sunflower oil for mayo, and that would not warrant a purchase of a oil-mill. But almond oil, walnut oil, avokado oil - I see a business there, absolutely.

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R Scott

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Location: Kansas Zone 6a

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posted 10 years ago

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Mark and his neighbors have a larger press setup on a trailer. They time-share it. Or at least they used to.

Last time I looked that grade machine setup was about $10k, probably less now. Plus the material handling equipment (bins, augers, totes, etc.)

The presscake is really good animal feed.

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Dawn Hoff

pollinator

Posts: 533

Location: Andalucía, Spain

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posted 10 years ago

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Cool!!

We've been thinking about buying an olive
Oil press same way.

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