Stünzner Family Collection
Copyright : Museum für Völkerkunde , Hamburg
Captain Hufnagel developed sophisticated copra drying facilities , with the help of his engineer nephew , Fritz Stünzner , who arrived at Vailele in 1897 . There was no sun-drying , as was the practice in much of the copra industry . The coconut flesh was cut out under cover and placed in one of three drying kilns , which were fired by coconut husks and wood . Two of the kilns had four rooms and a larger one had six rooms . The photo on left shows a copra drying kiln at Vailele , possibly the largest six-room unit . When they were all firing , the three kilns could account for 5,900kg of copra in one drying cycle , which took 30 hours . The copra was then fit for market .
It was bagged and shipped to Europe where it was pressed to extract coconut oil . The oil had edible uses as well as industrial applications , including in soap and candle manufacture . The residual coconut cake left after pressing was found , in Germany , to be suitable for cattle feed . Pressing the copra in Samoa to obtain oil was not favoured for a number of reasons , including the difficulty in sourcing barrels for the oil . Other modes of oil extraction had been tried in Samoa and found wanting . Theodor Weber exerted considerable effort from the mid-1860 ’ s to the late 1870 ’ s to convert coconut processing from inefficient oil extraction to the large scale production and export of dried coconut flesh ( copra ).
In the photo at right , taken at Vailele around 1898 , the corpa drier is obscured by another building , perhaps the wheelwright workshop .
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