Making Cacao Butter

A Piteba oil press is useful for making oil from sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cacao seeds etc.
I made some sunflower seed oil today and it is delicious - light, fragrant and, of course, fresh as hell.

This video shows me making cacao butter from the cacao I grow in Costa Rica. Unfortunately, the video ends just before I break the machine by cranking too hard.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• cacao
• piteba
• chocolate
• oil press
• cacao butter

[jimmcar]

It was just the bolt that pins the crank to the screw. Easily replaceable.

[finalwave29]

I have been having roblems with this product.How do you stop the press cake from stoping up the cap.The manual says the nuts/seeds might be too dry buy I have tried walnuts,almonds,flax,sesame,ec­t. and I don't thik all of them are too dry.Could just

mix a little water with a ground up nut/seed and work,thanks.

[jimmcar]

@finalwave29

I know this response is quite late but maybe it will help some one else.

First of all, very important to make sure that the moisture content is correct. I tested it by drying the cacao out completely, then weighing it, then adding 8% water and leaving overnight so that it would soak in.

Then, the tricky part is to make sure that you continually adjust the pressure from the cap. When the cacao cake starts coming out, loosen the cap just enough so that it keeps coming out and...

[jimmcar]

and....

make sure the oil keeps coming out. In other words, the cap cannot be too tight but it also cannot be too loose. Very hard to get it right but with experience I found a good balance.

Even when that is perfect, you still need hard work to dig the hardened cake out of the cap. I put it in hot water and chip it out with a steel point when it has softened.

[jimmcar]

bigcotie, I am using the leftovers to make chocolate powder. I sell this along with my chocolate - people love it. It is much richer than the stuff you can buy in a store...

[benknefelkamp]

What part broke?

[Saturnoche]

Im in Colombia, and I stop with the cacao, I kept braking bolts and finally blackish-grey oil started coming out because of the friction inside. Plus the cake was always like a stone, hard, impossible and very time consuming to wash. Im now more with dry pieces of coconut, and the amounts and efforts involved are much more rewarding, even thou I miss the cacao butter. I knew about peacegecko comment below, but or I didn't hit it or I guess is more a press inadequacy.

[doGruoY]

hihihih, good muscles exercise in same time =)) Mnahhhh! That bicycle construction looked interresting, i think i will do that too.

[peacegecko]

@farazathul its not a grinder, you can find cheaper grinders online or anywhere. this is a seed/nut oil press, way more expensive, and smaller capacity.

[peacegecko]

did you read the instructions? the wick is too long if you are getting soot. and the nuts/cacao seeds are too dry if you aren't getting oil. you need to soak them to get an 8% moisture content. if you go to lehmans.com product listing for this press for sale, it has a link to download specs and instructions. the nuts look too dry to me- thus causing the crank to be extremely difficult to operate, and not getting oil. good luck!