Vacation DIY : Making Coconut oil
As you guys are well aware, there are numerous health benefits to using coconut oil. So much so that I will not attempt to list them here.
Coconuts are widely available around the island (Cool fact: They are not native, but were actually introduced to the Caribbean by humans read more here), so I teamed up with my mom and we decided to make coconut oil the old time way. Here’s how it went!
1. We gathered dry coconuts ( the free kind from her garden), hashed them out and grated the hard “meat”.
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| Freshly grated coconut |
2. We added distilled water to grated coconut and squeezed out the milky liquid AKA the milk. You can use a cheesecloth strainer or very clean hands to do this. We kept adding water to the grated coconut until it squeezed out clear.
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| Water added to the grated coconut |
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| Freshly squeezed coconut milk…tasted great too! |
3. We then set the milk aside for a couple days to “curdle”.
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| Curdled coconut milk……from this angle it looks completely |
4. We then scraped the curdle off the top and boiled it. Then Voilà … We had coconut oil!
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| Boiling the curdled portion of the milk |
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| Debris remaining after generation of the oil |
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| All that work for 4 ounces of oil |
Re- reading what I wrote it seems like its a fairly simple and easy process…and it is. However, it is labour intensive and time consuming.
The outcome: I think I’m going to continue buying coconut oil.
Until Next Time…
Len