How Purifying and Filtering Cooking Oil

This procedure for filtering and purifying cooking oil for reuse is fairly simple. And making it a habit to reuse cooking oil can be your small step towards greener living.

To purify and reuse cooking oil you need just a few basic things;

1. Metal strainer
2. Cheese cloth
3. Paper towel
4. Ginger slices ( Ginger will absorb most of the odour and taste of the foods that were cooked in the oil., about 20 grams per 1 litre of cooking oil)
5. Airtight glass jars or bottles for storage

This process for filtering and reusing cooking oil requires the oil to be heated, so avoid using anything made of plastic throughout the procedure and make sure none of the things used during the procedure are moist or wet.

1. Strain the cooking oil once using a strainer to catch and remove any coarse food particles.
2. Heat the oil to a temperature of about 170 -200 degrees Fahrenheit, and put in the ginger slices.
3. Turn off the heat after about two or three minutes, and let the ginger slices remain in the cooking oil while the oil cools naturally.
4. When the cooking oil has cooled down to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which will be approximately 10-15 minutes after turning off the heat, it’s time to filter the oil.
   
   
   To make the filter, line the conical strainer with the paper towel, making sure that there is no place from where the oil can leak out without passing through the towel. Next, line it with the cheese cloth in the same fashion. Since the filter we’ve made is really fine, it may take few minutes for one litre of oil to pass through it.
   
   
   When the filtered oil reaches room temperature, you can transfer it to the storage jars. Close the lids tightly and store them in the refrigerator.

This procedure can be repeated three to four times before you finally need to discard the fryer oil, which means a little effort can save you some goodly amount of money too.

Alternatively if you are recycling small oil volume, you may boil it with equal parts water the let it cool. The water will collect the impurity's. Then all you have to do is remove the oil from the top of the water.

You should never throw it down the sink as that will only contaminate the environment.

Some places have recycling centres where you can dump your used oil, or you must put any oil left over from cooking in a jar and dispose the jar in your rubbish bin, 

.....also to you can make soap cakes, and it will demonstrate it in a future blog.

Marlene Daniels