How to make coconut oil without any food processor?

Question

How can I make coconut oil without having access to any food processors? I do not own any blenders, juicers, coffee grinders or anything like that and I am not looking to buy one, so I want to know if that's possible.

I would also like to know how efficient the methods you will mention are? Would I get around 66g of coconut oil per 100g of fresh coconut meat (as is the approximate content of fats in fresh coconut meat)? And if not, how much would I get approximately and how to improve the amount that I can get (again, without food processors)?

Answer 1

This is not something I have done, so I don't have all the answers you're looking for. This is, however, something my mother in law (Sri Lankan) does with old coconuts. It's something that's been done in Sri Lanka and other tropical countries for hundreds if not thousands of years.

She'll split the coconuts open and pry out the flesh, then leave the flesh out in the sun until it dries out. Then she takes it to a mill to grind, but at this point, you could grind it yourself. You could use a mortar & pestle or anything like that to grind it as finely as you can. Then squeeze the flesh until you get oil out of it.

I don't know how much oil will be produced, though.

Answer 2

If instead of using a food processor or blender, you hand-chop and mash the finely chopped coconut meat in cheesecloth, you can still follow most of the many recipes online. For a very small investment, you could purchase a grater to make it a little easier.

Here are some instructions including a grater approach which seems adaptable to a knife-and-elbow-grease approach. Here's another, similar set of instructions for comparison.

You said in a comment that you were concerned with yield and waste. She says she gets about 200mL oil from three coconuts. But I suspect that's using her electric gadgets and that you may not see quite that yield using a knife and/or grater.

You'll be left with mashed coconut pulp. This can be dried and used to cook with. Get it pretty fine and it’s basically coconut flour. A lot of people (esp. those who are restricted to low-carbohydrate intake and have to avoid grains and many other starches) use coconut flour in breads and pastries and as a thickener. (I believe it's considered low-FODMAP in moderate quantities.)

This site shows one cup (80 grams) of shredded coconut has 12.2g of total carbohydrates, 7.2g of which are indigestible fiber. The sugar content is quite low at 5g, less than a third of which is fructose. I do not think that can be reduced, but I consider that a good fiber-to-sugar ratio.