If you want to make your own flax seed oil, hemp seed oil, almond oil or walnut oil fresh for salad dressings or to use in recipies, what are your options? Currently, I count 3 assuming a budget of $300 or less, some with a question of whether it's really raw or not.

Let's start with # 1. The most expensive and also most convenient option is the L'Equip Omni Juicer/Oil Press. John Kohler, the owner of these forums, has profiled this juicer/oil press on Youtube.
[www.youtube.com].

Advantages:
- it's truly raw, temp of the oil is under 118 degrees as John verified in the video with his infrared thermometer.
- compared to the other two options, it's automatic. No manual effort

Disadvantages:
- It' $300, over twice or three times as much as manual press options,for a mediocre juicer just to get the oil press.

#2 Piteba A Dutch design, The best video on Youtube to demonstrate the advantages of the Piteba design is [www.youtube.com] It's well worth the 8 minutes plus some kewl banjo music.

Advantages

- The catch container is under the press meaning no stand required, see # 3
- At $100, it's the least expensive of the oil presses in this review

Disadvantages

- For both 2 and 3, they use an oil lamp (bunsen burner) to heat the expeller to improve the efficiency of the oil extraction. In # 1, John does basically the same thing by heating the seeds on the stove and running them through. So there is an honest question of whether its truly raw or not. Could you use the equipment just heating one batch of seeds like the L'Equip to improve efficnecy without cooking the expellar? Could you just run the expellar cold and filter the oil??? [this question matters to me, it's an experiment I haven't run].

- what ever catch container you put under the Piteba design is going to be pretty small. The Rajkumar Indian design allows much greater efficiencies for large oil extraction

- it's manual, you have to turn the crank [yeah I'm going to copy and paste this on # 3]

#3. Rajkumar Oil Expellar. It's an Indian design for $155 plus shipping that includes (I think?? please follow up on the stand) a stand, a manual and a DVD. The URL is [www.rajkumarexpeller.com]. The color is similar to the Piteba. But the design is a bit different. It uses a bunsen burner/oil lamp same as the Piteba. But two major differences: 1) the feed hopper (metal) is built in to the design, no more plastic bottles, and 2) instead of the drip design on the Piteba, there is a shoot for the oil to fall down to the receiving area. .

Advantages:

- price is intermediate between Piteba and L'Equip at $155 (note if you are a do it yourselfer, you can buy a less expensive version of the Rajkumar without the stand, for $140 [www.network6000.com] Shipping will also be cheaper buying from Bill Anderson (network 6000) than from India.
- feedhopper & catch capacity are better than Piteba

Disadvantages

- more expensive than Piteba
- not sure if truly raw (less than 118 degrees)
- it's manual, you have to turn the crank (see I copied! )

Recommendation: Not sure I can make one. I bought the Rajkumar and will comment further when I have used it. It all depends on your price point, many may not even want fresh pressed oil and will make do with the whole foods. That's what I expect the majority on this forum to do. but if/when you want to expell fresh oils, here are three or four options. Best to all.

Paul



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2010 03:49PM by pborst.

I guess to make it fair to Rajkumar (if subjecting potential buyers to Kenny G is fair), here is a pretty good Youtube video of the Rajkumar. [www.youtube.com]. Seriously, if you aren't a Kenny G fan, turn the volume down. ooooh. I like the Piteba banjo much more.

Paul

Update:

The Rajkumar ramp is detachable if you would prefer to let the oil drip into a container similar to a Piteba. If that's all you want, the Piteba is a better buy at $100 plus shipping. Big issue now, is can it be done w/o or less heat. and the temp of the oil. Is it really raw. Will experiment hopefully in concert with John Kohler and get back to you. John bought the Piteba. I bought the Rajkumar. I'm hoping we can do some runs and get back to you on efficiency/yield. There are yield data on seed and nut in the network6000 about oil removal efficiency, running in general 60 to 85 percent depending on the seed with heat. If the oil itself is cool enough, not sure I want to mess with success. Will follow up.

Paul

Thanks for the review, Paul. I am somewhat interested in purchasing one...not sure how much use it would get though.

Hi,

I've just been looking at and crank oil presses, and read a bunch of reviews. I wonder if anyone can update me on the hand crank oil presses mentioned in this thread. Buyer reviews on another site say they are not made of stainless steel, but cast iron, that washers are not food grade, that the coating is paint not powder coating, and so on and so on and so on.

This forum seemed like the best bet for accurate information.

I also wonder how the press works if you do not burn the little flame, can you still get oil out?

In looking at the photos, it looks like the plate that fastens the press to the table is not very wide. It seems like you would want a wider base to brace against the wide arc of the crank, which brings me to my last question. Are the cranks the same length on both of the Piteba and the one from India.

Thanks very much for you r help

Thekla

I'm wondering if anyone has found out if truly raw flax oil can be produced by these presses, such as the Peteba?

Thanks,

Gary

I tried twice (I'm the originator of this thread) and it didn't performed as I expected. I'm sure it was my lack of skill rather than the device. But if a device requires that much skill, I can't use it.