Coconut oil has many uses, for example it can be used in baking, frying and even in skincare. It is wonderful for making homemade chocolate truffles, for use as a moisturiser which is especially good for dry lips but it can even be used as a low SPF sunscreen.
Pure coconut oil can be relatively cheap to buy which makes it not worth the hassle of making your own coconut oil, mainly because of the amount of processing needed to do it. Factory machines that extract the oil keep the production cost low but if you want try making your own coconut oil let me show you how to do it. For this tutorial we are going to be using 1 fresh coconut.
The first thing you will want to do is remove the coconut water and then separate the coconut meat from the outer shell. Next you will want rinse the coconut meat and cut into small cubes to help your blender. Then you will want to boil some water, let it cool to a warm temperature and then add it to your blender with the coconut meat and grind.
Once grinded, pour into a sieve to separate the coconut milk from the ground coconut meat then press with your hands to squeeze out the last drop. Grind the meat a second time to extract more coconut milk but this time use a finer sieve to extract the smallest parts of the coconut meat.
Essential tip: Don’t throw the ground coconut away you can add it to blended dates to make energy bars.
Put the coconut milk in the fridge overnight, in the morning you will see that the coconut oil and the coconut water has separated. Place the white part into a saucepan this will be for the coconut oil and the leftover liquid can be strained a final time to separate the extra coconut oil and then it can be added to plain rice to prepare a West African coconut rice dish called Jollof rice.
You can also use the water for any dish that calls for coconut milk and whilst it will not be as creamy it will still have the nice coconut flavour. If you don’t want to use the coconut water straight away you can put in a container and freeze. Cook the coconut oil on a medium heat for around 1 hour until it has burnt. If it smokes at any point simply reduce the heat to low. Let the coconut oil cool down and then sieve it through a cheesecloth or through Kitchen roll into a sterilised container. Coconut oil is best kept in the fridge and it will keep for up to 2 years.
