COCONUT : PART 20

Coconut fruit has sepal on each base.

This part is wasted too, but for creative person it will be a great material for artistic products.
Look these dried 'flower'...

Source : Tristar

They are so beautiful, aren't they?
We can find lot of women that produce dried flower that made from so various waste, especially natural waste  such as feath, seeds, ruits, kernel, shell, bark, leaves, branch, and others.
They spend their rest time to do productive activity and funny too.

COCONUT : PART 19

Coconut flower cluster is wrapped by a couple of spatha or sheath.

Look the brown part like a 'ship' on the picture above..., that is the sheath of coconut flower.
The sheath is so strong.
Here in Indonesia, we call it as 'pelepah kelapa' and Javanese call it as 'mancung'.
Long time ago, this part was only thrown away  or used as 'fire wood' on the village.
When I was a little girl, I used to collect the sheath to make ship toy or 'plate'.
But, there are a lot of creative people here that processed this waste into beautiful products.
There are so many products such as fruit plate, lamp caps, pencil holder, pen holder, miniature of ship, tissue holder, partition, and many more.
You can see here.

Source : riaucraft.wordpress.com

The price of that products is not cheap anymore.
Cause these waste become a product that have high value on art.
That process is really increasing the value of the waste, and of course environment friendly.

COCONUT : PART 18

Coconut wood is well known as good material for building and furniture.
Here we can find so many traditional buildings that use coconut wood as the main material.
Coconut wood also used for ethnic and modern style furniture, both of indoor and outdoor furniture.
Actually not just for that purpose above, but we can find so many products that made from this wood.
There are glass, cup, place mat, tray, spoon, mortar and pestle, pencil holder, knife holder, tissue holder, rubbish bin, jewelry box, and many more.
You can see so various product using coconut wood here.
All look so interesting, cause this wood has very beautiful pattern, so natural and exotic.
This wood has a strong typical wood, but it's not too tough, so it fairy easy to be processed.

 
This is my rice spoon that made from coconut wood.
Look the pattern of the wood...
It's so beautiful, isn't it?

During the expo, we can find so many products from coconut waste.
The best time to add more collection that made from coconut parts.

A great idea to process all waste into a better product.

COCONUT : PART 17

Coconut leaves have straight and elastic veins on the center of the leaves.
As a very slim and elastic stick
Indonesian call it as 'lidi', and we are Javanese, call it as 'sada'.

Here, we use to make any handy crafts from it.
Actually, we had used this stick on making Indonesian traditional meat dish 'sate' or satay.
The simplest product is outdoor broom or we call it as 'sapu lidi'..
I think, every body here have broom like it on their house.
Until this time, on the village area people still make their own broom by their selves.

They pick the old green leaves and remove the leaf part that resembles a ribbon to get the stick.
The green leaves have a strong, and fairy elastic, so not easy to broken.
Than a handful of the sticks will be tied using bamboo ring or plastic rope.
So... we get our own broom now.

But at this time, not just broom that we can make from this stick.
There are bags, table runner, plate, fruit basket, bowl, vase, lamp shade, wipes holder, decoration, jewelry box, and many more.
Look our little jewelry holder that we got from a wedding reception several weeks ago, so pretty...

You can see many creations from coconut stick here and how to make handy craft from that stick here.

COCONUT : PART 16

Yesterday we have talked about making activated carbon and coconut charcoal from coconut shells, now we will talk about making handy crafts from that stuff.

Coconut hull is very hard part, but have a beautiful shape and pattern.
Here, there are a lot of  equipment that made from coconut shell.
Look my soup spoons..., just a simple craft, a traditional craft.

The handle is made from coconut wood, with a very beautiful pattern.

These are the buttons of my dress...

They are made from coconut shell too.

We can find bag, bowl, glass, box, tea pot, wipes container, belt, lampshade, and many more handy crafts here, so various.

The producers and designers are so creative.

You can see so various handy craft here and here.

Actually there are lots of products that I can't mention it one by one.

Next we will talk about coconut leaf stick.

Enjoy your day...

COCONUT : PART 15

This month, we will continue the coconut series.

Now, we will talk about how to get economic value from coconut waste, especially the endocarp or coconut shell.

Here we call it as batok kelapa or tempurung kelapa.

This is the hardest part of coconut fruit.

Look... there are a bountiful 'waste' from processed coconut industries.

There are so many products that made from batok kelapa.

The most famous product is activated carbon.

The coconut shells will burned without oxygen for about 3-5 hours until the smoke become thin and clear. 

And we will get the black coconut shell on a flat form or we call it coconut charcoal.

Then, the coconut charcoal will be pounded or mashed into very small part.

The coconut charcoal powder will be activated to be an activated carbon.

Activated carbon is usually used on industry as filter or absorbent material.

The charcoal also will be mixed with thick diluted tapioca/cassava flour, then put it on the mold and after that dried on the direct sun shine for about a day. 

Now we get the briquettes of coconut charcoal as 'fuel' for our stove.

COCONUT : PART 14

Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) is well known as magical oil, because of its benefit.
We can get so many benefits from this oil.
There are three methods on making VCO.
Heating, fermentation, mixing and inducement.
The quality of this oil is depend on the coconut as the base material.
We have to use the real mature coconut (10-12 months old), than stored for about a month to reduce the water content.
People said that the best VCO is come from green variety of coconut that grown far away from the sea area.
The salinity could decline the quality of this oil.

Heating is the simplest way on making VCO, but the quality is fairy low, because heat make the lauric acid on the oil become decline.
On this method, the thick coconut oil will stored for about 1-2 hours until we get three layers.
These are water on the lowest layer, residual (blendo)  on the middle and crude oil on the highest layer.
Then the highest layer will be heated on the pan in the low heat for a moment until we get the clear oil (VCO).
So, the VCO is ready to be strained and packed.

On fermentation process, we need microorganism that produce enzim to ferment the coconut milk. 
This method is so complicated and need long period.
This method is less favored, especially on home industry.

Inducement method need VCO to induction the coconut oil to secede from the coconut milk solution.
So we have to provide VCO first, before we make our own VCO.
This method is also less practical.

The Mixing is the simple and best method for me.
On this method, we have to mix the coconut milk for about 30 minutes using mixer, then stored the coconut milk about 24 hours.
After that, we have three layers that really separated each other.
So, we can take the VCO from the highest layer, then strain it on the filter paper and ready to be packed.
Mixing method produce the high quality VCO with high lauric acid content, cause there's no heating, also adding the other stuff, so pure.

About the benefit of VCO, I think everybody have known about it.
This oil is well known as material base on cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
VCO rich in Vitamin E, lauric acid, oleic acid and many more, so often used as anticancer, antibacterial and antiviral.
This oil also used to improve human immune system, improve the digestion system, improve the secretion of insulin, to treat inflammation, prevent osteoporosis and many more.

What a shame, I lost my file on making both of traditional coconut oil and VCO.
You can see the process here.

To much topic of coconut that I want to share.
Next month I will share you another side of coconut through the monthly series.
I hope you will not get bored.
Thank you for following this series, I hope it will be useful. 
See you on the next series, and have a wonderful week.

COCONUT : PART 13

Today we will talk about making coconut oil using wet process.
This is the traditional process, an old fashion process, that still done by a lot of peoples on the villages.
That's the simple way, and have done from long time ago.
We have to use the mature coconut, that's about 10-12 months after pollination.

The old or mature coconut will produce more oil and better quality.
We have to make the thick coconut milk first.
The fresh thick coconut milk will be heated on the pan for about 2-3 hours, depend on the volume and the thickness of coconut milk.

We have use medium heat, from the first until the end of the heating process.
The coconut milk should be stirred continuously, until the water content have relieved.
The coconut milk will turn yellowish clear and the residual will set up.
On this process the residual stuff or 'blendo' has brownish color, it's much darker than on the dry process.
Then the oil will be strained and packed on the bottle.
You can see the step by step on making coconut oil here.
On this process, the color of this oil is much yellow than using dry process.
And the storability of this oil is much shorter.
This homemade coconut oil is just for home consumption, and not for sale.

This oil has good smell, and savory aroma.
The blendo/blondo is usually used for so many traditional dishes, both of savory and sweet taste.
Here, we can find lots of special dishes that made from blendo, especially on the low land area that produce an abundant coconut everyday.
You can see interesting dishes here and here.
Traditional coconut oil or 'lenga klentik' is very popular on Java, not just for cooking, but also for others purpose.
This oil is well known as skin softener, prevent hair loss, keep the hair black and shiny, for massage oil,and many more.
Next we will talk about making Virgin Coconut Oil.

COCONUT : PART 12

I think everyone know about coconut oil and have ever used it for cooking or other purposes.
There two kind of coconut oil, these are coconut oil and virgin coconut oil (VCO).
Coconut oil is usually well known as cooking oil.
Now, we will talk about the common coconut oil, or here we call it as 'minyak kelapa' and Javanese call it as 'lenga klentik'.

There are two basic way on making coconut oil, these are dry process and wet process.
First, we we talk about the dry process.
On dry process, the coconut pulps will dried directly with sun drying process or using oven.
Sun drying is the cheapest way on drying coconut pulp, but it needs 5-7 days on the full sunny day.
Using oven, the drying process just needs up to one day, but that's much expensive.
Oven is usually used during the rainy season, cause almost there's no sunny day along that season.
And also the rain water make contamination on the pulp, that it could decline the quality of the coconut oil.

The dry coconut pulp is called 'kopra'.
The kopra is ready to be processed if it has brownish color, wrinkled texture, curled shape and the water content is under 5%.
The first process is chopping the kopra using machine until it has very small shape.
Then the chopped kopra will be pressed on the pressing machine to remove the oil from the kopra.
Pressing process will be repeated twice or even more to remove all the oil content.
This process produce crude coconut oil (CCO) and also residual stuff that we call it as 'blendo' or 'plendo'.
The crude coconut oil then will be strained to get the clear oil.
Straining process also using strain paper.
To relieve the water content that remain, we can use activated carbon.
Water content on the oil will cause oxidation that make the oil have bad smell or we call it 'tengik'.

Now, we get coconut oil that has yellowish clear color.
And it ready to be packed.
Next, we will talk about the wet process on making coconut oil.
Please enjoy this series and have a wonderful week.

COCONUT : PART 11

Coconut fruit in Indonesia is usually sold without outer skin/sabut (mesocarp and exocarp) and just leave the endocarp (batok) also a raw of sabut.

Batok or tempurung is the hardest part of this fruit.

When we break the endocarp using thick and big knife, we will find the coconut water and also the white pulp.

The thickness of the pulp is depend on the variety and also the maturity.
The pulp will be thicken through the maturity.

Then the pulp will be removed from the endocarp, it's not an easy process.

The next step is remove the brown skin of the pulp to get good quality end product.

The all  brown skin will removed until we get white part.

Then the pulp ready to be washed and processed later.

Now, we will make the coconut milk or here we call it 'santan'.
The simplest  way to make coconut milk is using blender or food processor.
But for us, the taste is different when we use grater.

Most of Indonesian more like using grater that made from stainless steel or wood.
But the other using grating machine to get practicality.

For us the taste of the grated coconut that using traditional grater has better taste.
Now, we get grated coconut, so ready for cooking or for making coconut milk.

For coconut milk, we have to add some warm water on it and then kneaded.

So we will find the coconut milk soon.

The thickness of the milk is depend on the water that we add on it.

For the thick coconut milk just add a few warm water, and for the thin coconut milk we have to add more water.

The next step is strain and knead it.

Now... we get the coconut milk.

So, we can see the difference between coconut milk and coconut water.

Next, we will talk about making coconut oil.

Enjoy this series and have a wonderful week.

COCONUT : PART 10

I have talked  a lot of things about the coconut flower on the coconut series last month.

Yes,  the coconut flower bud or wrapped coconut flower produce sweet liquid that we call 'nira'.

Nira is usually used to make sugar, drink, alcohol or just for sweetener on making traditional dishes.

The end of the flower is usually cut by the sharp knife to make the nira flows.

Then the nira will be collected using bamboo containers.

Farmers harvest the nira twice a day in the morning and afternoon.

Look ... the farmer after harvesting nira.

Nira will be processed soon to get a good quality of sugar.

Cause this liquid will be fermented soon on the open air.

The fermented nira will produce low quality of sugar cause it couldn't get harden.

Then the nira will be strained and boiled for about 4-6 hours, until the liquid have thicken.

During the boiling process the nira have to stir regularly to avoid caramelize.

Farmer usually use fire woods for their stove, cause the sugar have woody smell, so authentic.

When the liquid turns thick and brown, it means ready to be inserted into the molds.
The mold is usually made from so many materials, such as bamboo, stainless steel, and batok/tempurung kelapa (the endocarp of coconut fruit).
The shape of the molds is also so various, and it influence the shape of the sugar.
There are tubular, globular, disc, and many more.

The molds will be put on the tray, then the thick liquid will be poured into the molds.
Wait for about 1 -2 hours, and the coconut sugars are harden, then ready to be removed from the molds.

The coconut sugar is ready to be packed.

Yes, this is kind of coconut sugar on block shape.

We also found liquid coconut sugar and coarse powder coconut sugar that here we call it as 'gula semut'.
The coarse powder form is usually for international trade, cause it easy to be packed and used.
To get powdery shape, it needs longer time on cooking the liquid and can't stop on stirring it until the coarse powder shape have formed.
The price for this sugar is more expensive.
This sugar is well known as palm sugar.

For liquid coconut sugar, the process is much easier.
Just boil the nira for about  2-3 hours to get thicken liquid, then the liquid is ready to be strained and packed into the bottle.
The liquid coconut sugar is produced to process the fermented nira, that couldn't processed into block or coarse sugar.
Have you ever use coconut sugar on your kitchen?
Next we will talk about the coconut 'pulp'.
Please enjoy the series, and have a wonderful week.