Sunflower Seeds to Oil

[TeeDee]

I have a small plantation of Sunflower heads coming on a treat.
After I've rescued and stored a heads worth of seeds for planting next year I thought I would see just how many seeds make 'x' amount of Sunflower oil. More for education and experimentation than anything culinary or credible.

Is there a time prove method for extracting Oil from seeds that can be done with some basic equipment? Method?

 

[Toddy]

A cupful gives 'maybe' three tablespoonsful of oil I found.

They need to be ground, or pounded if you have a decent mortar and pestle, and if they're awfully dry you can add a couple of teaspoonsful of water just to help ease things along.
Once it's really mashed up, the paste is kind of thick and really hard to squeeze in your hands so I put it into a 'cloot'....that's a cloth used for cooking/boiling something, not an open weave kind of one meant for straining lightly like cheesecloth....and twist and squeeze that over a bowl. The oil drips through and it's quite clean too using the cloth this way with the debris contained in the cloth.
I know folks can do it by hand but I found that such an effort and such a mess and waste too.

I'm told that if you moisten the squeezed out paste and do it again then you can get a second 'expression'.

Kind of fun to do, messy, but fun

M

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Using agricultural varieties & a press, 2.5 kg of seed will produce around 1 litre of oil. It will of course be a little less with garden varieties & hand extraction.
The easiest method in terms of equipement is simply to pass the seeds in a mixer/blender (you could start with a kilo which will give you a managable mass to begin with)) & then put the resulting paste in bowl, add a few tablespoon of water & knead & squeeze as if making bread or malaxing cake mixture, keeping the mixture moist by adding a little water from time to time,( the water will also help the oil separate from the solid) after a while the oil will start to collect at the bottom of the bowl. Filter & collect this oil & then put aside about half of the paste & continue to vigorously knead & squeeze the rest & filter the oil as it forms. When no more oil is forming, remove that part of the mixture & drop the other half left aside earlier in the bowl & continue with that.
The resulting oil will be perfectly edible, rich in vit. E & will store in an opaque container.