What Is the Complete Process to Make Peanut Oil, from Raw Peanuts to Bottled Oil?

For you planning to enter or upgrade your peanut oil production lines, a clear, comprehensive understanding of the complete peanut oil making process is crucial. Based on Henan Glory’s production technology and peanut oil processing equipment, we will systematically introduce each link from raw peanuts to bottled oil, and provide a practical reference for your investment decisions.

1. Peanut Selection

High-quality peanut oil originates from strict raw material screening. Therefore, you should select plump, full-grained peanuts that are free from mold, and excessive moisture, with low impurity content.

2. Shelling and Kernel-Shell Separation

If your raw material is shelled peanuts, a peanut sheller is required for shelling. The mixture after shelling is fed into a kernel-shell separation sieve, which achieves thorough separation of peanut kernels and shells based on the principles of specific gravity and air separation. The separated peanut shells can be used as biomass fuel, realizing resource recycling.

Peanut shelling machine

3. Cleaning and Impurity Removal

Peanuts may be contaminated with impurities such as soil, weeds, and stones during harvesting and transportation, requiring thorough cleaning. Peanut cleaning typically involves three types of peanut oil processing equipment: vibrating screens, magnetic separators, and destoners. Vibrating screens remove large and light impurities; magnetic separators adsorb metal impurities such as iron nails and screws; stone removers separate stones with particle sizes similar to peanuts. This step not only eliminates external contaminants but also ensures the smooth operation of subsequent oil extraction processes.

Peanut cleaning equipment

4. Crushing and Flaking

Cleaned peanut kernels are fed into a toothed roller crusher and uniformly crushed into appropriate-sized particles. They are then sent to a double-roll flaker and pressed into flakes 0.3-0.5 millimeters thick. This stage physically breaks down the oilseed cell structure, increases the surface area, and facilitates subsequent processing.

Peanut crusher and flaker

5. Cooking

Cooking are critical steps in peanut oil production. Peanut flakes are fed into a vertical multi-layer cooker for conditioning under controlled temperature and humidity. This process denatures proteins, aggregates oil, and develops the unique aroma of peanuts, enhancing the taste and nutritional value of the final oil.

Vertical multi-layer cooker

6. Peanut Oil Pressing or Solvent Extraction

There are two main extraction methods for peanut oil, depending on production scale and requirements: pressing and solvent extraction.

For pressing, the roasted peanut flakes are fed into a screw oil press. Modern high-efficiency oil presses are usually integrated with an auxiliary cooker above the pressing chamber, which adjusts the temperature and moisture of the material in the final stage before it enters the chamber. This ensures the material is in the optimal physical state for pressing, which is crucial for maximizing oil yield and stabilizing oil flavor. Inside the pressing chamber, the material is subjected to intense mechanical pressure, extracting the oil. After pressing, two products are obtained: crude peanut oil and pressed peanut cake.

For large-scale production (daily processing capacity of over 30 tons), n-hexane solvent can be used to dissolve the oil in peanut cake. The solvent is then removed through evaporation and stripping processes to maximize oil extraction from peanuts.

Peanut oil extraction machines

7. Refining Process

Crude peanut oil obtained from pressing typically contains gums, free fatty acids, pigments, and off-odors. These impurities must be removed through refining to improve oil grade, stability, and taste. The refining process of peanut oil usually includes the following steps:

Degumming: Removes colloidal impurities such as phospholipids to prevent foaming or sedimentation when the oil is heated.

Deacidification: Neutralizes and removes free fatty acids through alkali refining to reduce the acid value.

Decolorization: Uses adsorbents (e.g., activated carbon or bleaching clay) to remove pigments and other trace impurities, making the oil clearer.

Deodorization: Removes off-odor substances, FFAs, and volatiles from the peanut oil through distillation under high temperature and high vacuum conditions.

Peanut oil refining machine

8. Oil Filtration and Packaging

Crude peanut oil after pressing contains cake residues, and bleaching clay is used during the decolorization process. Therefore, a leaf filter is required in peanut oil production to remove residual fine impurities and spent bleaching clay from the peanut oil.

In the packaging stage, peanut oil is filled into bottles of various specifications, followed by sealing, labeling, and packaging via an automated production line. Our company adopts aseptic filling technology to ensure the peanut oil is not contaminated by external factors during packaging, thereby maintaining its freshness.

If you are interested in our peanut oil processing equipment or wish to upgrade your peanut oil making process, please feel free to contact us. Henan Glory Company will provide you with professional services and support.