How did the ancients extract oil?

The traditional manual oil press consists of a waterwheel, a millstone, a huge grooving wood and a hanging hammer. Oil mills are generally built on the banks of streams with concentrated villages, abundant water sources and tree-lined trees. Every year after beginning of winter, oil exploitation begins. The first step is to put the sun-dried nuts into a grinding plate and crush them. The power of the grinding disc is driven by a water wheel. The diameter of waterwheel and grinding disc is generally more than 4 meters, and all parts are made of wood. After the nuts are ground into powder, they must be steamed in a wooden steamer, and then put into a circular iron hoop with a straw bottom to make embryo cakes. Put the embryo cake into a pressing groove made of a whole piece of wood, and install a wedge on the right side of the groove to start pressing. The first step: crushing camellia oleifera seeds. The biggest labor of "pressing oil with soil" is the pressing of camellia oleifera seeds. This water hammer is driven by a water wheel and used to crush camellia seeds. For thousands of years, stone hammers have been used to crush camellia seeds. Several big men have been constantly switching to push the waterwheel with pedals, which is inefficient. However, in the process of oil extraction, the crushing process must be carried out twice. Therefore, even if you are physically strong, your bones will fall apart after a busy day. Steamed tea seeds. After the broken tea seeds are steamed (only when they are steamed can they be cohesive), they are put into the iron ring of the tobacco and put into the bamboo hoop, pressed into bamboo hoop cakes with a thickness of about 3 cm, erected one by one, and put into the "oil-pressed soil" oil tank, and a piece of paper is added between the cakes to prevent the extruded cakes from sticking to each other. The section of the oil tank of the "Earth Oil Press" is a bit like a lantern. A circle with a pack of "cigarette boxes" at the top and bottom. Round, about 25 cm in diameter, the purpose is to put pieces of tea cakes with the same diameter vertically. The "cigarette case" at the bottom is a wooden trough with high sides and low middle. The purpose is to make the extruded oil flow into the outer container through the lowest hole. The "cigarette box" at the top is an open slot, so that hands can be put in to clean up the broken powder in the slot. In addition, it is easy to operate when putting tea cakes. There are two ways to make tea cakes, one is to use bamboo hoop as the periphery, and the other is to use metal hoop as the periphery. These two kinds of hoops are woven, otherwise, they can't bear the great pressure when they are squeezed. The diameter of the bamboo hoop is the same as that of the metal hoop, and the side width is about 1 cm. In the "square well" of "earth oil extraction", three paths of wooden blocks with different thicknesses are vertically placed, ready to squeeze wooden cakes about the size of the cakes placed in front. Three wooden wedges are used to match three blocks, and "squeezing with soil and oil" is very scientific. After one building block hits the wedge, the other two building blocks must be loose. At this time, a thicker block can be used to replace a thinner block. In this way, exchange wedges, replace wooden blocks, and gradually squeeze wooden cakes into the round grooves. The "main engine" of the manual oil press is a thick "oil tank wood", the length must be more than 5 meters, and the section diameter should not be less than 1 meter. Cut a 2-meter-long and 40-cm-wide "oil tank" in the center of the tree, and put the oil embryo cake into the "oil tank". When pressing, the palm hammer boss sticks to the air, and the two assistants are in harmony. This process can extract 60% of the total oil output. The second process: Because the thickness of the cake and bamboo hoop is equal, it can't be squeezed any more. So take it out, take out the log cake and the bamboo hoop cake. Break the bamboo hoop cake, take away the bamboo hoop, and crush the crushed tea seed cake that has been squeezed into a block again. Stir-fry the crushed tea seed cake in a large pot (if it is not stir-fried, it is not easy to make the cake again, and if it is not stir-fried, the oil squeezed out will not be fragrant). Put it in a metal hoop (the upcoming extrusion is stronger than the first process, so the metal hoop is used) and make a 3 cm thick metal hoop cake. Stand them up one by one, put them in the oil tank of "earth-pressed oil", and add a piece of paper between the cakes to prevent the pressed cakes from sticking to each other. Squeeze again (the method is the same as the first step). In this round, 35% of the total oil output can be squeezed out. The third process: Although the strength of the second process is not small, it is impossible to press the metal hoop cake from 3 cm thick to 1 cm. Take out the metal hoop cake with a thickness of about 2 cm, arrange it (scrape off the protruding part formed during extrusion), put it in the wooden trough again, and extrude the last part, accounting for about 5%-8% of the total oil output. One step in the process of oil extraction is to make broken tea seeds into "cakes" suitable for putting in oil tanks. The old process is to step on them with your feet, and the reformed process is to flatten them with a spiral rod. Compared with stepping on your feet, it is both hygienic and strong.