Walnut oil

Walnut oil is a high quality cooking oil from mature, partly roasted seeds of walnuts. It is pale to light yellow in color, relatively thin, has an intense, nutty flavor and is characterized by a particularly high content of triglycerides of unsaturated fatty acids ( monounsaturated: 20%, two-fold: 62%, three times: 9%). It is also cooled a limited shelf life.

Production

The best walnut oil is obtained by cold pressing with subsequent filtering, simpler qualities either by hot pressing, or more commonly by chemical extraction with an organic solvent. The simpler qualities are refined to reduce the bitterness in the rule.

Use (food)

Because of its low smoke point of 130-160 ° C ( unrefined ) should not be heated or used for frying walnut oil. Therefore, it is particularly suitable for salads, it is popular in French cuisine.

Using (technical)

Refined walnut oil is also used in oil painting using. It is characterized by low viscosity, a high pigment absorption capacity, relatively fast drying and low yellowing tendency at the same time shine of the surface. In particular, for strong desiccants pigments walnut oil is indispensable even today.

Especially in the Anglo-American refined walnut oil is used for the treatment of wood surfaces; important is a very smooth wood surface before the first application. The first layer of oil is applied with the grain and added to the supernatant after a few hours. The following one to two layers are applied across the grain. After 24 hours, the oil film respectively cured. The treatment does not lead to long-term protection of wood, it carries away and must be repeated.

Due to the long dry season and periodically repeating application treatment with walnut oil is usually used only for wood surfaces that come in contact with food, such as Kitchen countertops and cutting boards, but especially for untreated wooden toys.

A displacement of walnut oil with genuine turpentine, white spirit not, indeed leads to a deeper penetration of the sealer into the wood, but also highlights the safety with respect to the contact with food on.