Sources suggest that sesame is one of the oldest oilseed crops known to humanity, and its cultivation may date back 3,000 to 5,000 years. Even today, sesame oil remains widely used around the world.
In this article, we'll explore the qualities that make this oil so popular, the evolution of the sesame oil production process, and what sesame oil manufacturing looks like today. We'll also take a look at how you, as a sesame oil manufacturer, can identify the right equipment and the right sesame oil press machine manufacturers to ensure the success of your edible oil business.
Let's dive right in.
What is sesame oil?
Sesame oil is a plant-based oil derived from sesame seeds. While sesame, the crop, ranks sixth globally in terms of production volumes of edible oilseeds, sesame oil ranks 12th in terms of volume of vegetable oil produced globally, with over 9,00,000 million tonnes being produced every year.
Sesame oil is fairly popular and consumed in different cultures across the world for food, religious, and industrial purposes. It is a popular choice of cooking oil in countries across Asia including India, China and Japan. But even in countries where it isn't the most common choice, the oil is consumed in large quantities. For instance, the United States alone imports 8,000 tonnes of sesame oil annually.
With a high smoke point of 210°C, sesame oil is used as a salad oil, cooking oil, in marinades and dressings. It is also used in the manufacture of margarine and shortening. But its popularity is also attributed to its versatility and applications across industries. As a cosmetics carrier oil, sesame oil is a raw material in the manufacture of soap, perfumes, lotions and hair care products. It is used to make paints, lubricants and illuminants. It may be used to coat stored grains and protect them from insect and pest attacks. It is also common in the pharma industry as a solvent for injected drugs or intravenous solutions.
Why sesame oil?
Sesame is of tropical origin. It grows best in regions with high temperatures throughout the growing season, like India, Sudan and Myanmar. This is why sesame oil manufacturing is fairly common in tropical countries. Sources suggest that sesame was cultivated as the main oil crop even as far back in history as the Indus Valley Civilization, so the age-old popularity of sesame oil production in India is no surprise.
Sesame oil continues to be popular today because it is versatile in application, nutritionally dense, chemically stable during storage, and resistant to rancidity. This oil, which comes from small, mild, nutty tasting grains, is considered to be the "queen of vegetable oils".
Sesame oil is known to be rich in vitamin E, vitamin K, and antioxidants. It is also packed with healthy fats like omega-6 fatty acids, oleic acid, linoleic acid, and palmitic acid. These nutritional elements make sesame oil great for heart health, skin health and inflammation.
Depending on the sesame oil production process, the oil may vary in colour and flavour. Raw sesame oil is light in colour with a mild, nutty flavour. On the other hand, toasted sesame oil is darker in colour and has a stronger savoury taste. Each of these oil types has diverse applications in different industries.
Most importantly, sesame oil is an important part of the culinary culture and heritage of many countries, especially in Asia. This makes the market for sesame oil robust and predictable, even in the face of changing trends in the food world.
The evolution of the sesame seed oil extraction process
As we've mentioned earlier, sesame seeds are among the oldest oilseed crops known to humanity. Naturally, the highly mechanised sesame seed manufacturing processes we have today didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago. The sesame seed oil extraction process we know and use today is a highly evolved version of how sesame oil used to be made - a process we'll explore before we dive into modern sesame oil extraction methods.
Have you heard of a Ghani? It is an ancient design of an oil press, in which oil is crushed from oleaginous materials using a mortar-and-pestle-like arrangement powered by animals. It is traditionally made of two stones, with one stone crushing the raw material against the other to extract oil. Historically, such Ghanis have been used in India, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Although there is no evidence of the historical use of Ghanis in Sudan, this oil extraction setup is quite common there, too.
This traditional Ghani-based sesame oil production process involved using an animal to rotate the pestle and pulverize the sesame seed between the crushing stones. It also involved the use of water in the extraction process, with an operator needing to manually assess the consistency and texture of the pulverized material along the way. It took about three-quarters of an hour of this process for frothy oil to separate itself from the raw material. The oil was allowed to settle, after which it was either drawn into a vessel using a drain pipe or mopped up with a cloth and wrung out manually into the vessel.
As you can tell, this process required a significant amount of human effort, oversight and time. Moreover, the relatively low pressure in Ghanis yielded about 5% less oil than a modern expeller does. It is no surprise, then, that this process evolved to involve less manual labour and provide higher yield. Ghanis are still used today because they retain some nutritional and flavour qualities that may be lost with modern methods. Nevertheless, sesame oil manufacturing today has become largely mechanized, with only 24% of sesame seeds globally being Ghani-pressed.
In the next section, we'll explore what sesame oil manufacturing looks like today.
Let's cut to today. As a producer of sesame oil, the challenges you face today vary from those faced by sesame oil manufacturers in the past. You have to concern yourself with sustainable sourcing of raw materials, logistics, technological improvements in the industry, market insights, waste management, and more.
Your sesame oil press machine manufacturers are important partners in this journey of setting up and operating your business. Not only can they provide experience-backed advice on raw material sourcing and quality but they also provide the technology that helps you manufacture sesame oil.
As engineering partners to over 560 customers from around the world, we at Kumar have gathered a significant amount of experience, expertise and insight into the sesame oil manufacturing process. Here, we've detailed the most important things for you to keep in mind.
Sourcing raw materials for sesame oil production
When sesame seeds are cultivated to be pressed for oil, their oil content and the quality of the seed are very important. If you're sourcing seed for your sesame seed production plant, make sure that you do not accept seed which has an oil content of less than 50% -- today, most sesame varieties yield 50 to 55% oil.
Moreover, since sesame seed has such a high oil content, a large number of broken seeds reduces the grade or quality of the oil extracted from it. An inappropriate rate of feeding in the combine, air blast and the setting on the cleaning sieve can over-thresh the seed, leading to unacceptable seed damage. So, it's critical that you discuss and assess these factors with your sesame seed supplier before you source your raw materials from them. Industry players suggest only accepting a maximum of two broken seeds for every 100.
During transit and storage, it is also important that you protect the sesame seeds from rain and dew as wet seeds can heat up faster than dried seeds and reduce your oil yield and quality.
Finally, we come to the question of sustainability. Sesame cultivation is generally planet-friendly because it can grow with minimal irrigation and in relatively poor soil. So, in most cases, the sesame you source will be sustainably grown. Nonetheless, large-scale sesame cultivation can cause soil degradation and biodiversity loss in the long run. If you're keen on sourcing your raw materials for sesame oil production from the most sustainable sources, prioritise produce from farmers who use sustainable techniques like organic farming and/or crop rotation.
Preparing sesame seeds for sesame oil production
To obtain high-quality, food- or industrial-grade oil, every oleaginous material must be prepared using tried and tested approaches. For the sesame seed oil extraction process, the tried and tested preparatory steps include seed cleaning and conditioning.
Seed cleaning. Once sesame seeds arrive at your facility, you must wash them using the appropriate winnowing or seed-cleaning equipment to remove dust, stones, sticks and other foreign matter. Not only will this ensure the quality of your final product but eliminating stones and other unwanted materials will also protect your equipment and ensure its longevity. Kumar's Seed Cleaner is perfect for separating impurities from sesame seeds.
Conditioning. Next comes conditioning. This involves the processes of drying and roasting, both of which, naturally, involve the use of heat. Conditioning not only reduces the moisture content of the seeds but it also enhances the efficiency of the sesame seed oil extraction process and the flavour of your final product.
If sesame seeds are conditioned at very high temperatures, the sesame oil extracted from them will lose its natural aroma and flavour and develop a bitter taste. On the other hand, if the temperature is too low, then the oil yield will be very low. Getting this step right is essential to maximising the quality of your sesame oil.
This means that you need to invest in the right equipment, ensure that experts guide you through your process design phase, and train the equipment operators well so that nothing in your production line compromises the quality of your product.
We recommend Crown's Vertical Seed Conditioner or our Stack Cooker/Conditioner technology for this process.
Sesame seed oil extraction process
The sesame seed oil extraction process can be carried out in multiple steps, depending on your process(es) of choice and the plant design you've selected with your sesame oil press machine manufacturers.
Typically, but not always, we at Kumar recommend a three-stage extraction process for sesame oil.
Mechanical extraction or expeller pressing 1. To begin with, the prepared seed is crushed using an expeller press. This step of mechanical extraction may be completed using either a screw press or a hydraulic press. Depending on the type of press you choose, you may have to prepare your sesame seeds in slightly different manners. Additionally, pressing temperatures will also vary based on your desired product quality - if you want to produce raw, high-quality, nutritionally rich sesame oil, you should opt for cold pressing; if you want a higher yield of oil, you can go for hot pressing.
Kumar's New Super Press Series Oil Expeller, X' Press Series Oil Expeller Max 200, and New Oil-N-Oil Series Oil Expeller are great options for your mechanical extraction needs.
Regardless of how it is extracted, the oil is given some time to settle after it is discharged from the press. Some of the sesame seed solid usually remains in the oil; the process of filtration is used to separate these solid components from the oil.
Expeller pressing 2. In the second stage of sesame oil extraction, the oilcake obtained from the first stage of extraction is pressed again in an oil expeller machine. This will help you to get a higher yield of oil. While the oil obtained in this stage is settled and filtered, the residual cake proceeds to the third extraction stage.
Solvent extraction. Still, some oil content remains in the oilcake. In the final step of the sesame seed oil extraction process, the cake is doused or sprayed with a solvent - typically hexane - to extract as much oil as possible. Before this, however, the cake is put through the process of cake sizing. This process makes the oilcake particles into an appropriate size for solvent extraction.
We recommend using the CFx Extractor for your solvent extraction needs.
The crude sesame oil extracted during each of these three stages is transported to a sesame oil refinery plant, where it is made fit for packaging, sale and human consumption.
Refining sesame seed oil
The sesame seed oil refining process typically includes degumming, alkali refining, bleaching, and deodorization.
Degumming. In many commercial sesame oil manufacturing plants, crude sesame oil is degummed to remove phospholipids and other impurities. Wet gums are produced as a by-product.
Alkali refining, or neutralisation. In this step, free fatty acids (FFAs) are neutralized using an alkaline substance. Soap stock is a by-product of this process.
Bleaching. This process removes unwanted colours from the oil by using bleaching clay. Spent earth is generated as a by-product. Our Ecopure Bleacher and Stable Bleacher do a phenomenal job of producing oil that is visually appealing to consumers.
Deodorisation. In this final refining step, sesame oil is deodorized to, as the name suggests, eliminate unwanted odours, usually using steam. We recommend using either our Ecopack Deodorizer or our Ecosteam Deodorizer.
Bottling and packaging sesame oil
Refined sesame oil that has undergone all (or most) of the above processes is packed either into drums or bottles using an oil filling line. This packaged oil is ready to be transported to the market for sale or to other companies that may use it in the production of other products.
Sesame oil production in a circular economy
In keeping with our commitment to sustainability, we at Kumar encourage edible oil manufacturers to also get involved in downstream stages of the sesame oil value chain. This may involve redirecting the sesame oilcake to industries where it may be a valuable resource, say, the animal feed industry. It may also involve selling wet gums, soap stock, spent earth, and other by-products to food, detergent, biodiesel, and/or oleochemical industries. Sesame oil manufacturers could also become directly involved in the production of lecithin, acid oil, biodiesel, detergent, or fatty acid distillate produced during sesame oil refining.
Ultimately, there are several stages in the process of converting raw sesame seeds into useful products for consumers and industry. As a sesame oil manufacturer, you could get involved in all or only a few of these stages. Regardless, Kumar offers a product line that caters to many of the required technologies across the value chain.
If you're ready to get started on your journey of sesame oil production, you've come to the right place. Get in touch with us today to get expert guidance on how you can make an impact on the edible oils industry.
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