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food preservation

how would you remove oil from alcohol extracts?

greg mosser

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posted 2 months ago

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i make a number of alcohol-based extracts for baking, etc, out of various local products of farm and forest. among them are hazelnut and black walnut extracts, which always seem to end up with a bit of oil floating in them after straining out the solid bits they’re made from (probably not surprising when working with ingredients with high oil content). i want to remove the oil and lose the least amount of the alcohol/water extract that the oil is floating in. how would you do it?

Pearl Sutton

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posted 2 months ago

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Chill it and skim it.

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Christopher Weeks

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posted 2 months ago

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What's your volume? And how much labor is it worth? And how much waste can you bear?

If I had a single small extract bottle with some oil, I'd start by trying to draw it into scraps of paper-towel by dipping corners into the oil-beads.

If I had a lot, I'd put it in something like a graduated cylinder and decant the stuff off the top.

Another approach, depending on the particulars, would be to siphon the good stuff out from under the oily surface, breaking the siphon before the oil got too close to the hose.

(Duh...or chill and skim it, that sounds better than my ideas.)

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Robert Ray

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posted 2 months ago

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I am wondering how much of the flavor is in the oil? Evaporation of the alcohol would leave all the flavor in the oil? I pulled this out of an article:

If your extraction and evaporation are done correctly, the final oil will retain most of the flavor that alcohol could dissolve, with only minor losses to evaporation or incomplete extraction. The exact percentage depends on the plant material, solvent strength, and processing method, but in good practice, well over half of the extractable flavor is usually left in the oil

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Pearl Sutton

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posted 2 months ago

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Having taken Black Walnut extract, I'd say it would be better if it lacked some flavor. Good medicinal, but hard to choke down.

jd hutton

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posted 2 months ago

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Coffee Filter.

Works great with even 'heavy oils' (ie: hot bacon grease to get the little crispies out) May 'take awhile', but.. Ehh.. Read a Book / Soak some Vitamin Sunshine.

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greg mosser

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posted 2 months ago

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there is definitely some flavor in the oil - with another of my hats on, i press pretty amazing edible oil from black walnut kernels. but this is really a fairly tiny amount - like a curl of little bubbles that goes halfway around the top of the liquid in a full-ish quart or half-gallon mason jar, and only along the edge. tiny bits.

the walnut is just a flavor extract of good ripe kernels (and sometimes the presscake from pressing the them), nothing like the medicinal extract, more pleasant by multiple orders of degrees. for use like vanilla extract.

sounds like i’ll be trying to chill & skim.

Ulla Bisgaard

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posted 2 months ago

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I make a lot of extracts, and I find, that using a broth and fat separator, works the best. A separator, is a small pitcher, with a hole in the bottom, you can open and close by squeezing the handle.
You simply pour your extract and oil into the separator. Wait until all of the oil is on the top. Then I drain out the alcohol extras, through the bottom of the separator pitcher. Since the oil flows on top, you eventually end up with only oil in the pitcher.
Is some slips through, I just run it through again.

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Carla Burke

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posted 2 months ago

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I think getting the oil out is wise, because while it definitely holds some flavor, it also goes rancid (especially nut oils) rather quickly. I like Pearl's idea of chilling it, or Ulla's separator idea, because that way you can actually save and use the oil, before it has the chance to go rancid.

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posted 2 months ago

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I would try using a basket style coffee maker filter if I were trying this.

I usually buy the brown paper ones.

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