Make your own Virgin Cold Pressed Coconut Oil

I’m sure that you have all heard of the benefits of coconut oil…(if you haven’t, click here to find out more of the wonderful benefits of this amazing superfood) From lowering cholesterol, to leaving you with smooth shiny hair, coconut oil has been used for centuries by traditional people. I always put coconut oil in my hair before I wash it, and given how dry the environment in Riyadh is, it’s the only thing keeping my hair shiny.

We’ve seen the bottles of oils in the store, but have you ever wondered how easy it is to make your own? If your coconuts are of high quality, the fragrance of fresh cold pressed oil will blow you away. Cooking with such fresh ingredients also leaves a distinct flavour that is hard to find with commercially produced oils. Fresh cold pressed oil is rich and food, in my opinion, tastes amazing!

If you have any FAQs, please click here.

For the instructions as a printable PDF, please click here.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN VIRGIN COLD PRESSED COCONUT OIL

TOTAL TIME: 3 Days

PREP TIME: 4 hours

SET TIME: 48 hours and 3 hours in the fridge.

You will need
– Mature Coconuts (3 coconuts makes just over 1/2 cup solid oil)
– A screwdriver/drill
– A hammer
– A tea towel
– One large bowl and 2 medium size bowls
– Small Sharp knife
– Vegetable peeler
– High speed blender
– 1 cup of non-chlorinated water for each coconut (leave water to stand for 24 hours for chlorine to evaporate)
– Natural Unbleached Cheesecloth
– Sieve
– Ladle
– Sterilised Pyrex dish
– Mesh strainer
– Empty sterilised glass jar to store your oil in

Instructions

Brown mature coconuts

1) Begin by removing the water from your coconuts. The easiest way is to drill two holes at the top, slightly pointy end. Pour the coconut water into a bowl, but don’t discard, as we will use it later.

2) Once the water has been collected from all the coconuts, it’s time to crack open the shell. The safest way is to wrap the coconut in a tea towel. Then, using the hammer, strike the coconut with a heavy blow. It may take a few attempts, but eventually the coconut shell should crack, exposing the white mature meat. Repeat this process with all the coconuts.

Left – Peeling the skin away.
Right – The peelings, coconut water and the coconut.

3) Now you need to extract the flesh from the shell. You can use the tip of a clean sharp knife to run around the edges of the shell to free the meat. Once all the meat has been collected, using a vegetable peeler, peel the brown hard skin away. You will be left with the coconut water, the peelings and the coconut. Discard the peelings. They’re great for your compost!

Add the coconut water and then blend, blend, blend! You can also use a food processor.

4) Rinse your coconut using purified water. Now we need the blender. Blend the coconut water and coconut meat together, on very high speed, for a couple of minutes. We want the coconut pieces to be of very fine texture.

This is what it should like after you’ve blended it.

Squeezing the water and coconut flakes together

5) Remove the coconut from the blender and place in the large bowl. Add the non-chlorinated water to this bowl too. Using our hands, we need to squeeze the coconut flakes and water together, until the mixture looks very white and creamy. Continue mixing and squeezing for about 30 times. Then, leave to stand at room temperature for 3 hours.

Ladle the mixture on to the cheesecloth covered sieve. Wait a few seconds before squeezing to extract the liquid, leaving you with coconut flakes. Discard flakes in another bowl. Repeat process until all the liquid and flakes are separated.

6) After three hours, you’ll see that the cream has risen to the top. We need the cheesecloth, sieve and two bowls. Place a sieve on the larger bowl, and then the cheesecloth on top. We need ladle the coconut liquid mixture on to the cheesecloth, and squeeze to extract the liquid from the coconut. Once the liquid has been extracted, we empty the coconut flakes into our other bowl. Repeat this process until all the liquid is one bowl and the coconut flakes are in another bowl.

To make coconut flour, you need a dehydrator or oven and a coffee grinder. Leave the coconut flakes in the oven with the pilot light on for a 24 hours, or in your dehydrator following your manufactures instructions. The next day, the flakes should have dried out. Using a coffee grinder, and in batches, grind the coconut flakes until it resembles flour.
To make coconut butter, blend the flakes for about 10-20 minutes, depending on the speed of your blender.
Store both items in clean sterilized jars and in the fridge.

7) We no longer require the coconut flakes, you can use it to make coconut macaroons or coconut flour. You can compost it too, it is highly nutritious for your soil.

The liquid in a large Pyrex container

8) Now we are left with just the liquid which we extracted from the coconut flakes. Place the water in a clean shallow container, such as a Pyrex dish. Cover this with some cling film.

9) If you live in a cool environment, where room temperature is below 70F or 21C, leave to stand at room temperature for 48 hours. Then put it in the fridge for three hours to overnight to solidify.

After 24 hours, you will notice a few bubbles at the top and what will be the oil, has risen to the top. My kitchen smelt so coconutty!

10) If you live in Saudi Arabia, we have to do things a bit differently. Leave the dish at room temperature for 24 hours, and then put it in the fridge for the remaining 24 hours.

The solid mass is the coconut oil.

11) After it has been in the fridge, there will be a layer of solid white mass at the top. This is the oil. We need to carefully extract this from the remaining liquid.

12)You can use a mesh strainer to separate the solid oil from the liquid. Please view the above video to see how I extracted it. (There’s no speech in the video, so don’t worry if you can’t hear any audio)

Left – our fresh coconut oil.
Right – the remaining liquid.

13)You can discard the liquid, or you can continue the fermentation process to make your own coconut vinegar.

Your very own cold-pressed virgin coconut oil!

13) Voila! Now you have your own virgin cold pressed coconut oil. You should keep it in the fridge. You can use the oil for cooking, just like you would normally use store brought VCO, or as a conditioning treatment for your hair.

Please leave a comment below if you have any problems or need extra help.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!