Getting oil from seeds - Seeds press

Hi,
does anyone know any type of seed press that can be used to extract oil from seeds like: pumpkin, sunflower, and other common seeds. What about avogados, can the same press be used to crush the pumpkin seeds or a bigger one is needed (looks like so...but...)
Cheers
Antonio

I use a handcranked piteba oil press. It's easy to use. I mostly press macadamia nuts but I've also done sunflower seeds. Mine gets used quite frequently - weekly during the major nut season.

As for avocado, that oil is made differently. It's not pressed.

EDIT: Oops! Didn't see Su Ba's post. Exactly :D

Original:

I have not personally used this press, but a well-know resilience/self-reliance gardener has been homesteading in Maine for 40 years (Will Bonsall) has used this press to great success:
https://www.piteba.com/en/shop-oil-press-nutcracker-sets-spare-parts-home-oil-production-fruit-press/1-piteba-oil-expeller-7435114797721.html


He says there are knock-off ones of these coming out of China that may contain undesirable compounds in the metal and/or paint. If I buy one I'm planning on on getting it straight from the manufacturer

It requires oilseeds with 25% oil or more. So it can't be used on olive pits. I've watched him use it on black oil sunflower seeds, pretty slick!

Lastly it comes with a little kerosene lamp, but Will doesn't want to "need" kerosene, or burn it near his food, so he has replaced the lamp with candles and claims it works every bit as well.

I'm trying to grow my first crop of oilseed this year so I won't bother with a buying a press until I know I am likely to succeed with those crops :)

Two other thoughts: what do you intend to do with the oil cake that's left over? I think it's usually used as livestock feed.

Since Will keeps no animals (strict vegan) long before he pressed oil, he ground oilseed into meal using a Corona mill. The oilseed meal can be used like butter on cooked veggies or used to "season" cast iron by coating whatever you're going to cook in the meal before tossing it in the hot cast iron. He argues the oilseed meal is more nutritous than just the pressed oil alone. Tough to argue with that :) I hope to try both by the end of the 2019 growing season...

Thanks
what about the oil you get from nut seeds, do you have to use it quickly or does it stay fresh for some time?
I mean ar ethey similar to olive oil that just needs to stay in a cool and dark place in order to keep even for a year or more?

Bobby, I don't have animals either. Hadn't thought of a use for the cake yet, and didn't know it would be edible for humans. What is a Corona mill, is it a similar machine as the piteba or what?
The producer says that it works on olive pips too.
Does anybody know of larger machines that allow to do a bit more quantities?
Cheers

I think it would be interesting to know if anyone has tried to automatize these kind of mills and what result has achieved.
I am thinking to offer seed oils to the food coop where I belong but  feel that just doing it by hand would be very cost ineffective, just because of the cost of many of the seed sources. Filberts for example cost around 20€/Kg here in Spain how much oil can I get out of a Kg of filbert nuts? not a liter of course so this oil would come quite expencive if I also have to add labor on top.....hum
Cheers

I ordered an electric oil press from amazon, I paid around 300$ US for it with delivery but you can find it cheaper on sites like alibaba.com if you're braver with dealing directly with chinese manufacturers. It is extremely easy to use and has pressed sunflower and pumpkin seed oil wonderfully for me. The companies that sell it market it as a tool to save money and have fresh oil by pressing small amounts regularly and buying the seed in bulk. I bought it to experiment with producing seed oil for sale and have found that it is easy and presses a good amount of seed quickly but is probably not sufficient for real commercial use. Anyhow it's not a bad deal and seems like it will last for many years.

Antonio Scotti wrote:Bobby, I don't have animals either. Hadn't thought of a use for the cake yet, and didn't know it would be edible for humans. What is a Corona mill, is it a similar machine as the piteba or what?
The producer says that it works on olive pips too.
Does anybody know of larger machines that allow to do a bit more quantities?
Cheers

Antonio, this will be my first season really getting into the oilseed experiment. So I don't know if all oil cake is good food for humans, but if you hulled black oil sunflower seeds and pressed those, that oil cake would be perfectly edible (I'm not sure how good it would taste though). Other oilseeds that I am aware of (in my limited understanding) for people food can include pepitas, flax and breadseed poppies. If the pepitas don't have hulls I imagine any oil cake from these would be perfectly edible, too.

Oil cake could, of course, be composted. But it's almost a shame to do so, which is why Will started experimenting with grinding them into meal. [Incidentally I was just quoting Will on the olive pips. Perhaps he is mistaken or perhaps the press has been improved over the years?]

Here is the Corona Mill:
https://www.amazon.com/Corona%C2%AE-Corn-Grain-Mill-Hopper/dp/B00838YC5A/

A better reviewed (and cheaper) mill is here - this is the one we bought and use:
https://www.amazon.com/Victoria-Professional-Manual-Grain-Grinder/dp/B00JZXCLPU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521223866&sr=8-3&keywords=victoria+mill

Having used the Victoria, I'd say it's "okay." Eventually I want to be milling all of our bread flour at home without using electricity. I do NOT want to use the Victoria on that scale (we use about 70 kg of wheat flour a year). I stumbled upon this write up on several different mills and found it quite informative:
https://www.backdoorsurvival.com/best-manual-grain-mills-for-milling-at-home/

The "Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe" is the one I will buy when the time comes.

I'm afraid I have no knowledge about pressing oil on a scale you are talking about, sorry. Hopefully others can help?

Side note: it's a shame I don't like hazelnuts/filberts. They grow VERY well around here. Bonsall grows them a lot and swears that filbert butter (as in, like peanut butter) is one of the greatest foods on the planet. He neglected to say exactly HOW he makes peanut butter, though. But I imagine it would take less energy that pressing them for oil and doing so would save a person the trouble of having to dispose of the oil cake

Antonio
First the pitba costs about 90 euro
Secondly have you thought about walnut and chewfa both could make oils you could sell locally

David

The piteba press can have an electric motor attached to it. I've seen folks around me do that. But they are processing a lot of macnuts in order to sell the oil at the weekly farmers market. I'm not, so I don't bother making things more complicated and expensive for myself.

Oil will oxidize (go rancid) if it is not kept cold or treated with an antioxidant. The warmer the temperature, the faster it will oxidize. Commercial oils contain an antioxidant (preservative) but I don't know what is used. The local macnut oil people here add vitamin E to the oil as a preservative. Since I only press a month's worth of oil at a time, I simply store my oil in a glass container in my refrigerator. One of my neighbors stores her excess in her freezer. By the way, macnut oil goes cloudy when refrigerated, so it can't be stored that way if it will be resold.

If you plan to sell fresh pressed oil, it would be ethical to tell the buyer the date the oil was pressed and whether or not you have added a preservative. No preservative, then the buyer needs to know to refrigerate or freeze the oil for long term storage.

David Livingston wrote:Antonio
First the pitba costs about 90 euro
Secondly have you thought about walnut and chewfa both could make oils you could sell locally

David

Hi David, didn't know that chufa (chewfa) was an oily tuber. Also I have never seen anyone selling it here Thanks for the hint though I'll look into it.

Su Ba Wrote "Oil will oxidize (go rancid) if it is not kept cold or treated with an antioxidant. The warmer the temperature, the faster it will oxidize"

Another trick is to only store it in small air tight  bottles and use it quickly then you dont need to worry so much about this .

David

David, what about the chufa (tiger nuts) cake? can you envision any applications if you don't have animals? Is it edible?

Hi Bobby, many thanks for all your pointers....I'll have a lot to study...

Antonio Scotti wrote:Hi Bobby, many thanks for all your pointers....I'll have a lot to study...

You're very welcome! I hope some of it help. Good luck on your projects!