Extraction of the argan oil
Argan fruits have a very hard shell that encloses one to three almond like kernels from which the precious oil is extracted. Only women are involved in preparing this oil. On average, 33 kg of dry fruit, harvested from 6 to 7 trees, are needed to make 1 liter of oil.
Traditional method
Traditionally, argan oil is extracted by women. The ripe-fruit pulp and peel are carefully discarded, then argan nuts are broken with stones and the kernels are air dried in clay containers and roasted by mild heating. Roasted kernels are cooled then ground affording a brownish dough. This latter is finally hand-mixed with mild water for several minutes. To extract the oil, the dough is hand-pressed until it got solid and the obtained brownish emulsion is decanted, furnishing, after several minutes, a limpid oil with an hazelnut taste. The extraction residue or “press-cake” is dark-brown to black and generally still contains up to 10% of oil. It is very palatable to cattle.
This hand-made extraction technique is very slow and around ten hours are necessary to get one liter of oil. This technique barely affords more than 30% of an oil that badly preserves due to the water added during the extraction process. Traditionally, the oil is extracted when necessary and salt is added for its preservation.
Press-extraction
Recently, mechanical presses have been introduced to extract argan oil. Using this technique, mixing of the dough and water is unnecessary and the dough can be directly pressed. All other steps remaining unchanged, the oil is obtained in about 43% yield (calculated from the kernels) and only two hours are needed to get one liter of oil that preserves correctly.
Solvent-extraction
For industrial or laboratory purposes, argan oil can be extracted from ground kernels using any volatile lipophilic solvent. After evaporation of this latter, and one or two cycles of extraction, the oil is obtained in 50 to 55% yield. However, this type of extraction furnishes an oil with unsatisfactory organoleptic properties compared to the traditional or press extraction. This technique is exclusively reserved to prepare argan oil for cosmetic purposes.
Argan Oil – Where to buy?
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