COCONUT : PART 14

Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) is well known as magical oil, because of its benefit.
We can get so many benefits from this oil.
There are three methods on making VCO.
Heating, fermentation, mixing and inducement.
The quality of this oil is depend on the coconut as the base material.
We have to use the real mature coconut (10-12 months old), than stored for about a month to reduce the water content.
People said that the best VCO is come from green variety of coconut that grown far away from the sea area.
The salinity could decline the quality of this oil.

Heating is the simplest way on making VCO, but the quality is fairy low, because heat make the lauric acid on the oil become decline.
On this method, the thick coconut oil will stored for about 1-2 hours until we get three layers.
These are water on the lowest layer, residual (blendo)  on the middle and crude oil on the highest layer.
Then the highest layer will be heated on the pan in the low heat for a moment until we get the clear oil (VCO).
So, the VCO is ready to be strained and packed.

On fermentation process, we need microorganism that produce enzim to ferment the coconut milk. 
This method is so complicated and need long period.
This method is less favored, especially on home industry.

Inducement method need VCO to induction the coconut oil to secede from the coconut milk solution.
So we have to provide VCO first, before we make our own VCO.
This method is also less practical.

The Mixing is the simple and best method for me.
On this method, we have to mix the coconut milk for about 30 minutes using mixer, then stored the coconut milk about 24 hours.
After that, we have three layers that really separated each other.
So, we can take the VCO from the highest layer, then strain it on the filter paper and ready to be packed.
Mixing method produce the high quality VCO with high lauric acid content, cause there's no heating, also adding the other stuff, so pure.

About the benefit of VCO, I think everybody have known about it.
This oil is well known as material base on cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
VCO rich in Vitamin E, lauric acid, oleic acid and many more, so often used as anticancer, antibacterial and antiviral.
This oil also used to improve human immune system, improve the digestion system, improve the secretion of insulin, to treat inflammation, prevent osteoporosis and many more.

What a shame, I lost my file on making both of traditional coconut oil and VCO.
You can see the process here.

To much topic of coconut that I want to share.
Next month I will share you another side of coconut through the monthly series.
I hope you will not get bored.
Thank you for following this series, I hope it will be useful. 
See you on the next series, and have a wonderful week.

COCONUT : PART 13

Today we will talk about making coconut oil using wet process.
This is the traditional process, an old fashion process, that still done by a lot of peoples on the villages.
That's the simple way, and have done from long time ago.
We have to use the mature coconut, that's about 10-12 months after pollination.

The old or mature coconut will produce more oil and better quality.
We have to make the thick coconut milk first.
The fresh thick coconut milk will be heated on the pan for about 2-3 hours, depend on the volume and the thickness of coconut milk.

We have use medium heat, from the first until the end of the heating process.
The coconut milk should be stirred continuously, until the water content have relieved.
The coconut milk will turn yellowish clear and the residual will set up.
On this process the residual stuff or 'blendo' has brownish color, it's much darker than on the dry process.
Then the oil will be strained and packed on the bottle.
You can see the step by step on making coconut oil here.
On this process, the color of this oil is much yellow than using dry process.
And the storability of this oil is much shorter.
This homemade coconut oil is just for home consumption, and not for sale.

This oil has good smell, and savory aroma.
The blendo/blondo is usually used for so many traditional dishes, both of savory and sweet taste.
Here, we can find lots of special dishes that made from blendo, especially on the low land area that produce an abundant coconut everyday.
You can see interesting dishes here and here.
Traditional coconut oil or 'lenga klentik' is very popular on Java, not just for cooking, but also for others purpose.
This oil is well known as skin softener, prevent hair loss, keep the hair black and shiny, for massage oil,and many more.
Next we will talk about making Virgin Coconut Oil.

COCONUT : PART 12

I think everyone know about coconut oil and have ever used it for cooking or other purposes.
There two kind of coconut oil, these are coconut oil and virgin coconut oil (VCO).
Coconut oil is usually well known as cooking oil.
Now, we will talk about the common coconut oil, or here we call it as 'minyak kelapa' and Javanese call it as 'lenga klentik'.

There are two basic way on making coconut oil, these are dry process and wet process.
First, we we talk about the dry process.
On dry process, the coconut pulps will dried directly with sun drying process or using oven.
Sun drying is the cheapest way on drying coconut pulp, but it needs 5-7 days on the full sunny day.
Using oven, the drying process just needs up to one day, but that's much expensive.
Oven is usually used during the rainy season, cause almost there's no sunny day along that season.
And also the rain water make contamination on the pulp, that it could decline the quality of the coconut oil.

The dry coconut pulp is called 'kopra'.
The kopra is ready to be processed if it has brownish color, wrinkled texture, curled shape and the water content is under 5%.
The first process is chopping the kopra using machine until it has very small shape.
Then the chopped kopra will be pressed on the pressing machine to remove the oil from the kopra.
Pressing process will be repeated twice or even more to remove all the oil content.
This process produce crude coconut oil (CCO) and also residual stuff that we call it as 'blendo' or 'plendo'.
The crude coconut oil then will be strained to get the clear oil.
Straining process also using strain paper.
To relieve the water content that remain, we can use activated carbon.
Water content on the oil will cause oxidation that make the oil have bad smell or we call it 'tengik'.

Now, we get coconut oil that has yellowish clear color.
And it ready to be packed.
Next, we will talk about the wet process on making coconut oil.
Please enjoy this series and have a wonderful week.