How did the ancients press oil?

Traditional handmade oil presses consisted of a waterwheel, a mill, a large press tank and a suspended hammer. The oil presses are usually built on the banks of small streams where villages are concentrated, water is plentiful and trees cover the area. Every year after the beginning of winter, oil extraction begins. The first step in the process is to throw the roasted kernels onto a milling board and crush them. The power of the mill is driven by a waterwheel, and the diameter of the waterwheel and the mill are generally more than 4 meters, and all the components are made of wood. After the kernel is crushed into powder, it must be steamed in a wooden cauldron, and then filled into a round iron hoop with straw to make embryonic cakes, which are loaded into a whole wood chiseled press tank, and the right side of the tank is equipped with a wooden wedge to open the press. The first process: crushing the tea seeds, the largest amount of labor in the "earth oil press" is the crushing of the tea seeds kernel. The water pestle is driven by a waterwheel to crush the tea seeds, for thousands of years, the crushing of tea seeds are used stone pestle, several big men keep exchanging pedals to push the waterwheel, the efficiency was not high, but in the oil extraction process, the crushing process to be carried out twice, so even if your physical strength is strong, a day busy down, the bones are also like a broken frame. Steam the crushed tea seed kernels. After the crushed tea seed kernel steamed, (steamed to have bonding force), it is steamed and hot sub-installed in a grid of iron ring shelved into the bamboo hoop, pressed into the thickness of about 3 cm bamboo hoop cake, one by one, put up, put into the "earth oil press" in the oil groove, between the cake and the cake plus a piece of paper to avoid squeezing the cake after each other adhesion. The cross-section of the oil tank of the "native oil press" is a bit like a lantern. A circle, the top and bottom of each plus a packet of "cigarette boxes". Round, about 25 centimeters in diameter, the purpose is to rest into a piece of tea cakes of equal diameter placed vertically. The lower side of the "cigarette case" is a wooden groove, two sides of the groove is high in the middle of the low, the purpose is to squeeze out the oil through the lowest hole, flow to the outside of the container. The upper side of the "cigarette case" is an open groove, the purpose is to allow hands to rest in the groove to clean up the debris, in addition, resting the tea cake is also good to operate. There are two types of tea cakes, one with a bamboo hoop as the outer edge, and one with a metal hoop as the outer edge. Both types of hoops are woven, otherwise, can not withstand the enormous pressure in the extrusion. The diameter of the bamboo hoop and the metal hoop is the same, and the side width is about 1 centimeter. In the "earth oil press" in the "square well", vertical shelves into the three ways of varying thicknesses of wood blocks, ready to squeeze the front placed with the cake the size of the cake. With the three blocks of wood is three wooden wedges, "earth oil press" is very scientific, a block of wood into the wedge, the remaining two blocks of wood is certainly loose, then you can use the thicker blocks of wood to replace the thinner blocks of wood. Thus exchanged into the wedge, change the wood block, wood cake is gradually squeezed into the round groove. Handmade oil press "host" is a thick "oil groove wood", the length must be more than 5 meters, the diameter of the cut surface can not be less than 1 meter, the center of the tree cut out a length of 2 meters, 40 centimeters wide, "oil groove! ", the oil embryo cake filled in the "oil groove", when the opening of the press, the boss of the hammer, holding the hammer hanging in the air, in the two assistants and should be, will be up to more than 5 meters of the hammer, leisurely into the oil groove in the "into the pile", so the 3-centimeter-thick cake must be more than 5 meters long. Thus, the 3-centimeter-thick cake, gradually compressed into 1-centimeter-thick cake, was squeezed oil cake will flow out of a Lou Lou golden oil. This process, can be squeezed out of 60% of the total amount of oil out of the amount of oil. The second process: because the cake has been equal to the thickness of the bamboo hoop, can not be squeezed. Therefore, take out the round wooden cake and the bamboo hoop cake. Break the bamboo hoop cake, take away the bamboo hoop, and crush the broken tea seed cake again, which has been squeezed into pieces. After crushing the crushed tea seed cake, in a large pot of fried incense (not fried, one is not sticky, not good to make cakes, and secondly, not fried, if you squeeze out the oil is not fragrant). Set it aside into metal hoops (the strength of the upcoming squeeze is greater than the first process, so metal hoops are used) to make 3-centimeter-thick metal hoop cakes. One by one, put them into the oil tank of the "clay oil press", and add a piece of paper between the cakes to avoid the cakes sticking to each other after squeezing. Extrude again (the same method as the first process). In this round, 35% of the total oil yield can be squeezed out. Third process: Although the force of the second process is not small, it is no longer possible to press the metal hoops from 3 cm to 1 cm. Take out the metal hoop cake which is about 2 centimeters thick, straighten it (scrape off the protruding part formed in the pressing), put it back into the wooden trough, and press it again to squeeze out the last part of the remaining oil, which accounts for about 5-8% of the total oil yield. One of the oil extraction processes is to make the broken tea seeds into "cakes" suitable for putting into the oil tank, the old process is to step on the foot, and the reformed process is to use the screw bar to flatten. Relative to the foot, both hygienic, but also more sturdy.