Extracting oil from an avocado - cold-press method (Mar/31/2007 )

Hello!

Does anyone have experience in extracting avocado oil?
I would like to use the cold-press method. I have made a paste with the pulp and I added some distilled water (5 times the amount of paste). Then I have used a centrifuge at 4000 rpm to separate the oil from the rest but the liquid phase I obtained still contains a lot of water.
I´ve kept it sealed in a tube at 4 °C and it still has a nice green color (the color of avocado oil). To see the effect of oxidation on it I´ve put some in another tube with air in it and it has rapidly turned dark. I´ve read somewhere that you need to centrifuge at 6000 rpm to separate the oil from the water but this seems odd to me (I thought that water and oil can´t mix!) So I believe what is in my tube contains the oil but I don´t know how to get rid of the water and I wonder if the oil is still captured in the idioblastic oil cells?

I hope there is a specialist here that can enlighten me!

Thanks a lot,
Bye!

I have no experience in extracting avocado oil. Is organic solvent (hexane or ether) extraction an option for you?

i'm too have no experience, but can't you use something to make a sandwitch-like layers, i mean use a chemical that can lie between the two layers (oil and water)..

Thank you for your replies.

Unfortunately I cannot use any solvent or chemical as I need the oil to be pure.