How copra is made

A thousand coconuts weighing 1,440 kilograms yield about 170 kilograms of copra and 70 liters of oil.

stations: 5
things upstream: 1
raw source: 1
step from the ground: 1

The short version

Copra is dried coconut meat, and it is the form most coconut oil is pressed from. Farmers usually make it where the palms grow, cracking the nuts, draining the water and drying the halves in sun, in smoke or in a kiln. Good copra holds just 4 to 5 percent moisture, which keeps away the molds that ruin it.

Crack open the nuts

Coconuts are split in two with a chopping knife where they grew, exposing meat that is about 50 percent water and 30 to 40 percent oil. The liquid inside is drained away.

Goes in
Coconuts
Lay halves to the sun

Halves sit on racks with the meat facing the sky. After two days the meat comes away easily from the shell, and drying finishes within seven days in total. This is the oldest method and it gives good white flesh.
Or finish in a kiln

Where humidity is high, a roofed fire pit with a grid above it dries the meat faster. Eight hours of sun can cut a day from kiln time. Starting in the kiln can harden the surface so that it will not dry fully afterward.
Check for damp and mold

Damp meat grows molds that make aflatoxins, which are potent natural carcinogens. These carry through to copra cake, and then through animal feed into milk or meat. Well-dried material holds 4 to 5 percent moisture and 63 to 70 percent oil.
Sack it for the mill

Dried pieces are packed and shipped to oil mills, often overseas. There they are crushed for oil, and the remaining cake, 18 to 25 percent protein, goes to feed cattle and other ruminants.

End of the lineCopra Next it goes into coconut oil.

Worth repeating

Crushing copra gives about 70% coconut oil and 30% copra cake.
Whole small coconuts can be dried for eight months to a year in India, and the meat is then sold as a single ball.
Copra became a valuable commodity for South Seas merchants in the 1860s.