10937 Olive picking

Si Cristiana, many Forum posters have been picking their olives and are proudly enjoying their oil. We have had a couple of long threads on the subject, including Violetta asking questions about buying an olive grove.

hi noble - yes that is what I realised myself - would be great to have a better idea of just how many people (perhaps even the ones that do not pick their own olives) have some access to fresh (homemade) olive oil rather than have to buy it in a shop

You could put up a poll asking where people get their oil.

We use 25 litres a year and none of it comes from a shop of any kind.

Hi Cristiana

We've just finished our picking, we only have a few trees, but got 270 kg. plus. Already enjoyed our lovely green oil for cena and just above to make some fresh pesto with the new oil.
You can see our olive/olive oil story on our website, at the bottom of the gallery page.

ps. the pic. above is our oil!

we picked our 8 trees over 2 days, harvesting from 9 am to about 3 pm and collected 200 Kg (we left some of the higher stuff) and got 28 Liters of oil (organic, cold pressed) we do little to the trees - no fertiliser and minimal pruning because they are really part of the garden. In fact last year we left the olives as the harvest was poor and it rained quite a bit (we have to do it in the half term holiday) Great fun, very relaxing and when you have fruit like that on the trees, it seems obscene to leave them. (hence I'm still eating plum jam from last year's crop of plums)

You luckly people you. We, (sorry, my husband) planted 16 young trees 3 years ago. Last year (bad year for olives in Lunigiana) we harvested 14 OLIVES (not kilos).

This year, we have 2.3 kilos!!!!!!!! So about a quater of a litre of oil. Still, you have to start somewhere and boy, do we appreciate it.

We take the olives to the Frantoio together with our neighbours (and others) olives. You (F Bower) will also be pleased to know we harvest other olive groves, with owners permissions, that would otherwise simply be left. The place we go to produces our oil using some sort of centrifugal process, not a press.

I think you will find they press the olives first to remove the liquid and the put it through a centrifuge to separate the oil from the other liquids (water etc,)

Last year sansa (the olive stones) for using for heating was 20€ per quintale but because this year the harvest is so much better it is now only 11€ a quintale.

[quote=Nielo;102784]I think you will find they press the olives first to remove the liquid and the put it through a centrifuge to separate the oil from the other liquids (water etc,)[/quote]
You're right about the liquids being separated by centrifuge (the devices are, I believe, very similar to those used in dairy farming to separate cream from milk), but Persephone could also be right about the oil being extracted from the olive paste by a centrifuge. The Wikipedia article on [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_extraction"]olive oil extraction[/URL] explains how the process works.

In the the [I]frantoio[/I] we use, the only traditional olive oil press mat in sight is one in the Italian national colours hanging on the wall since the "pressing" is done by a centrifugal process.

Once the olives have been crushed by a traditional grinder with rotating stone wheels, the pulp disappears into a couple of large stainless steel machines. The first is similar to a machine you'll see in any [I]frantoio[/I]: it churns the pulp for half an hour or so, allowing the tiny droplets of oil in the pulp to collect and form bigger drops. In an older mill, this is what is placed on the mats that are stacked in a hydraulic press. In our mill, a lever is simply thrown to transfer the pulp into the big horizontal centrifuge like that shown in diagram form on the WIkipedia page (clicking on that image, by the way, allows you to read text not legible on the original page).

What comes out of that horizontal centrifuge is the [I]sansa[/I] (which goes directly into a dump truck outside the mill) and two streams of liquid: one that looks like milky oil and one that's a frothy, purple liquid with some solids. The bigger chunks are screened out of the latter, then the two fluids both go into a smaller, vertical centrifuge. What comes out of that is olive juice and olive oil.

Al

The things you learn here - I know now what a drupe is! :winki:

Hi Persephone,
I guess it's because they're actually too young.
Hope they will be more productive next year!

[quote=Nielo;102784]
Last year sansa (the olive stones) for using for heating was 20€ per quintale but because this year the harvest is so much better it is now only 11€ a quintale.[/quote]

I should like to know more about Sansa as a fuel, especially for wood burning stoves? Perhaps Nielo can enlighten us? I Googled and found this entertaining and imformative site about olives in general but insufficient info re Sansa. [url=http://www.geocities.com/~gianno/angi2.html]Olive Trees Planting[/url]

exactly the process we watched our olives go through at the local frantoio - took quite a while and next time I'll pop back home for a cup of tea but it was so interesting to watch - some of the locals seemed quite possessive that their olives were not contaminated that they stood for ages watching each process..err I think we did the same

[quote=F Bower;102860]exactly the process we watched our olives go through at the local frantoio - took quite a while and next time I'll pop back home for a cup of tea but it was so interesting to watch - some of the locals seemed quite possessive that their olives were not contaminated that they stood for ages watching each process..err I think we did the same[/quote]

I know of no Italian who would take his eye of his own olives, going through the frantoio process...no one is to be trusted. So take a flask of tea with you next time!

Spent nearly all day at the frantoio today watching olives.
We were originally told on monday by owner no1 to come at 6.00am on weds, due to other circumstances we had to take to olives down on tues night and leave them, owner no 2 said come tomorrow (weds) at 8.00am. As 8.00 was a better hour than 6.00 and this was the latest info we turned up at 7.30am to be told by owner no 1 'where were you at 6.00am, I had to phone someone else to use the slot' he wasn't told by no2 that our olives were already there.
We were told to return at 11.00, so we wnet home and did some more picking. Went down at 10.30, 2 people in front, our olives went to the crushing stone at 01.30pm, finally home with our oil at 0530pm.
I stayed from 10.30 til 0530, Anna went home to do some other work, I watched our olives all the way.
Quite a enjoyable day actually, for me, caffe and doughnuts served and some conversation, me with my very basic italian.

For info - we took 490kg down, got 60Lit of BEAUTIFUL oil, cost €58 for the pressing.

Stribs

Olives now at the press, awaiting pressing as everyone had underestimated the amount this year, so huge backlog. But we did get them weighed in at 566.5 kilos, which is amazing, will let you know the volume of oil later, and then we may do a second picking as still more trees to go......oh no!
A

Hi Angie and Robert

Great to hear your 'olive news', I was wondering this morning how you were doing. Especially good news to have the olives at the press seeing that bad weather has decided to kick in.

Great crop, congratulations.
We had a little dilemma on Monday, after taking our olives to the mill on Sunday, discovered another sack in the cantina. But, with the help of a lovely neighbour they will get to the press with his.

Best wishes

I discussed "Never take your eyes off your olives at the Frantoio" with locals and was told that oil can easily be "contaminated"...this can happen and that can happen and didn't I know that many people have their oil tested if they do leave the olives to be processed? Yesterday I was given a jar of olive oil. English friends had proudly havested a few trees and left the full crates for their custode to process at the mill. To my mind the flavour wasn't as it should be. (More like axel oil). I threw it away. They depart tomorrow for London and being a coward, I did not suggest that they get it analysed but thought surely they can taste the difference from the fresh oil we ate together the other evening? So may I say again ...don't take your eyes off your olives.

Morning,

A couple of interesting videos on the actual oil production process and tasting are part of the following article:

[url=http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy-featured/guarda/time-make-olive-oil-italy]Time to Make Olive Oil in Italy | Italy Magazine[/url]

...personally I prefer the last two!

Once upon a time...I was present during the industrial production of oil, in a frantoio, and I enjoy now to see more details through these videos. Plus, I've always wondered how to recognize a good oil! Though I love the one produced by my family!

Enjoy them and let me know your opinions!

Cristiana

If, as shown in the video, you are tasting various olive oils, take a sharp green apple with you, to clear your mouth after each tasting, because it is apparently more effective than taking a drink of water, beween samples.

Roberts just returned from the press where he has been for the last 5hrs, the oil yield came out at 82 litres, thats from the 566.5 kilos for those with a mathamatical bent, so we think slightly less oil per volume of oilves but still are very pleased, costed out at 98e for the press.
Sarah has made a piece which is now on Ytube, and is very well done, about our whole process, I will ask her to post the link.
A

I have friends in the South of Spain who freeze their olive oil without any problems. Light and air are harmful to olive oil, not cold temperatures. I found this article which may help:

[url=http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/how-olive-oil-works3.htm]HowStuffWorks "How to Store Olive Oil"[/url]

Something I only found about recently, the hard way! is that fresh oil, cloudy and green - wonderful, except that over a period of time it will give off some gas which will cause glass bottles to explode if closed tightly so slacken off those caps just a little.

stribs ... i think sebastiano has it pretty well right and i would look to this as the problem rather than pressing pressure and or skimming off... i presume you go to the mill you use because you get on with the people there...if its like the one we use its family run... the people working there look like death warmed up...almost zombies as the toll of continuous 24 hour shifts steps in...

as has already been mentioned the traditional date for starting olive picking is after san martino ...even this with the way temperatures have changed is maybe even a bit early.... the olive tree needs to stop inputting nourishment and start winter hibernation so that water content in the olive starts to reduce as the tree slowly goes to sleep....

however there is a cost to doing things that way... its harder to pick in bad weather... the fact that what most of us do is tend to follow locals and their habits is also not a guaranteed system for enjoying a better yield per quintale these days either... for sure when there were large families and everyone supplemented their incomes by working the land things were different... they would have picked as late as poss... to get the best yield,... they were also much hardier... Italy in general has far milder autumns now... and people treat olive picking as something to do on a nice sunny day... and it especially has to work in with their main job... so picking is dictated by a forecast of dry weather and arranging time off work to get the olives off the tree...

so basically i reckon that stribs you need to decide for you if a comfortable pick or a frozen finger damp pick with higher yield per quintale is the way forward... because you are doing it in far larger quantities than most of us... and it obviously must have a commercial value to you... so i would look more into how to optimize that side of things... after all that ...it might well be that your mill owner is the cause of the problem ... but i would say the way you have fitted into life in Abruzzo suggests to me that you would be unlikely to be a victim in that sense without at least one of your local friends tipping you off as to what was happening... i think you will have found out for yourself already that people here appreciate those that work hard to be part of a community... and they would count it as disrespectful to you if they knew this was happening and didn't tell you...

Elliven, this is very interesting, thank you. I've never heard of oil 'fermenting' so to speak. Over what period of time did this happen?

For those of you who have been following our olive picking, the second batch went to the cold press last week, this time our haul was 245kilos which produced just over 39 litres.
So all in all 120litres of oil from our trees, I guess we picked about 65/70 trees, but they varied so much in yield that it isnt possible to really get an average. We now need to prune and get them sorted out for next year, some of them were very overgrown and it was a matter of battleing into the tree to pick which made it more labour intensive, they all need a severe haircut.
A

[quote=F Bower;103623]Just how long does olive oil keep and how do you know it's going off? Does anyone know[/quote]
The olive oil from our November 2007 pressing is still fine. Having said that, it has been stored in stainless steel containers in our [I]cantina[/I] over the last year, so it has been in relatively cool and dark conditions all that time.

The main change I'm aware of over that period is that all the little particles of olive pulp settled to the bottom of the container during the winter. That means the oil lost its cloudy haze and became a clear yellow-green colour. I believe the bitter taste has also reduced slightly and I suspect the two facts may be related.

By the way, you might already know about what happens to olive oil when it gets cold, but in case you are not: if you visit your place over the winter and your oil has been in a cool house or cellar, you'll find flakes of a white waxy substance floating on the top of the oil and suspended in it. This is something that happens to all olive oil straight from the press, but you may have never seen it before because some manufacturers chill their oil and filter out the wax. In fact, it's a strictly superficial thing and nothing to worry about; the wax does not indicate any sort of problem with the oil, it disappears when the oil warms up and cooling the oil to the point where the wax appears does it no harm.

Olive oil goes "off" in the same way as any other oil or fat: the first sign it's past its best will be a slightly rancid smell. The [URL="http://www.oliveoilsource.com/olive_oil_storage.htm"]Olive Oil Source[/URL] website has more information on storage and rancidity.

Al

It has been very interesting to read about other peoples experiences si we thought we would add our numbers to the pot.

We have just returned to the UK from our house near Arezzo. We picked 11 of our trees over 2 and a bit days. Would have done more but were hampered by the weather and the fact that our appointment at the mill was suddenly brought forward. However, we managed to pick 260kg of olives which produced 38 litres of oil (a yield of about 14.5% if I've got my numbers right). The mill costs were €45.

It worked out well in the end as 38 litres is plenty enough for us, including the amount we give away to friends.

Also one of our neighbours may pick our remaining olives if the weather is ok and split the crop 50/50 with us which suits us down to the ground.

Agree with the comments on another recent thread that olive growing isnt really economical (certainly for us - and I'm not convinced that it is for our neighbours either who harvest c3000kg) but it is very satisfying.

Off to cut some bread for some more tasting of the nuovo raccolto

Sebastiano and Adriatica
Thanks for you comments.
One of the reasons for querying the pressure was that there seemed to be a lot of oil oozeing from the press after they said they were finished, I also got a feeling that the first time we went (2 years ago) they hosed the press down, not sure about it though.
The yield around here was about 12/13%, most of the olives have now been picked.
We have had quite a lot of rain lately which could have affected the outcome.

Enough of my troubles, thanks for the replys.

Have checked with one of our neighbours, he said a pressure of 400kg/cm2 is normal although 11% yield seems low, I do appreciate that the longer you leave it the water content will be less.
We were offered help and had to take it when we did.
We are on good terms with the mill owners and as far as we are concerned it will stay that way, the only way you learn things is to ask, maybe I should have rephrased my comments.

Dave

[quote=adriatica;104622]as has already been mentioned the traditional date for starting olive picking is after san martino ...even this with the way temperatures have changed is maybe even a bit early.... the olive tree needs to stop inputting nourishment and start winter hibernation so that water content in the olive starts to reduce as the tree slowly goes to sleep....

[/quote]

This must (have been) a regional thing. San Martino is 16 Nov. In our zone the idea of picking an olive before Santa Cecilia (23 Nov) would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Not only unthinkable - also pointless because the mill didn't open until after Santa Cecilia!

However, over the years, we have observed neighbours picking earlier and earlier, and the mill opening in late October. Sometimes it is because of the olive fly - but basically I believe it is to do with the weather.

Part of this is (possibly) to do with climate change, but my thinking is that much olive picking nowadays is done by dilettanti (I know many Italian housewives who'll willingly do a few days picking for a few Euro, and have a lot of fun!) but they don't [I]absolutely have to[/I] do this job - and if it is foggy and cold and horrid they will pass it up. Having traditional olives is a marginal venture economically, so if you are unable to tap 'hobby' pickers you have to 'move' the season.

It would be interesting to know whether advanced (or delayed) picking influences the quality/quantity of the oil!

[quote=Angie and Robert;104496]We now need to prune and get them sorted out for next year, some of them were very overgrown and it was a matter of battleing into the tree to pick which made it more labour intensive, they all need a severe haircut.[/quote]
Be brave and ruthless with the pruning. Remember that olive trees are not delicate and they'll survive just about anything you can do to them. They'll bounce back even if you get so carried away with your pruning that you end up with just a stump!

We've not yet started pruning, but we're going to be making some drastic cuts this year. Not only because we didn't bother last year and so picking was literally a pain at times, but also because we have more than enough oil to see us through the next two years, even if the next harvest is poor.

Al

it has been explained to me that the quantity of oil per olive is a constant its the other juices that vary... so as i understand it basically by picking early its not really that you are getting less oil in your overall harvest its just that you get more liquid waste...hence costs are higher because you are taking in more quintale to get processed....
hopefully that makes sense

as regards quality its very much dependant again... i think... a lot to do with the percentage of ripe olive material... as against less matured olives... thats the balance that gives each individual pressing its special flavour... to my mind... and i guess if the mill owner smokes how much fag ash gets included in the process...

another point that might interest stribs... mainly because of his larger quantity of work... i know people here that pay extra to have new or their own filters used in the press... your oil leakage/seepage could well be to do with the fact that the filters were maybe at the end of their life... and were reatining more oil than they should... it might be wrth looking into next year getting your own filter pads and using them each time your oil is pressed... their is of course an added cost but you then know for sure its all your produce and you also know that if you have taken your olives in they will never be pressed using filters that are just about to be dumped to start a new set...

[quote=adriatica;104677]it has been explained to me that the quantity of oil per olive is a constant its the other juices that vary... so as i understand it basically by picking early its not really that you are getting less oil in your overall harvest its just that you get more liquid waste[/quote]
That is logical, isn't it? Olive oil is not volatile as water (imagine a saucer of water and one of olive oil sitting on a window-ledge and consider which will evaporate first), so it makes sense that olives that have shrivelled a bit hanging on the tree will have lost, proportionally, more water than oil.
[quote=adriatica;104677]as regards quality its very much dependant again... i think... a lot to do with the percentage of ripe olive material... as against less matured olives... thats the balance that gives each individual pressing its special flavour...[/quote]
My understanding is that it's the high proportion of various "phenolic" compounds which gives oil from green olives it's distinctive bitterness and astringency. The amount of these compounds declines as the fruit matures, so the oil becomes milder (or, if you will, blander). The Olive Oil Source has a page on [URL="http://www.oliveoilsource.com/oliveoildr-polyphenols.htm"]polyphenols[/URL].

Since you'll never get exactly the same proportion of green to black olives from exactly the same trees in any olive grove from one year to the next, it makes sense that each pressing will be unique.

Al

[quote=Richard and Marie;103538]However, we managed to pick 260kg of olives which produced 38 litres of oil (a yield of about 14.5% if I've got my numbers right).[/quote]
If you took 38 litres of oil home from the mill (not 38 kg of oil), then your yield is actually a bit lower than that.

Your yield calculation would be right if olive oil weighed the same as water, but of course it's lighter. In fact, olive oil weighs roughly 0.9 kg per litre, so your 38 litres of oil weighs 34.2 kg (38 x 0.9 = 34.2).

Divide 34.2 by the number of [I]quintale[/I] of olives you picked (2.6) and you find that you got 13.2 kg of oil per 100 kg of olives or, in other words, a yield of 13.2%.

That's not a great figure, but it's about the same as we got and I suspect it's similar to what a lot of other people have been getting after a year that (by Italian standards) has been quite soggy.

The percentage yield is a good thing to know since you'll need to be able to toss it into a conversation with your neighbours if you want to have any credibility at all as an olive-grower, but I think the most important fact is the other one you mention: that you have more than enough oil to be able to give samples to friends and keep you supplied for the next year.

Al

Changing the subject slightly.
We picked about 1850kg this year, 490kg went for crushing we only got 60L of oil which is equal to 55kg which gives a yield of only 11%.
This seems a bit low compared with the size of the olives, maybe a high water content.
They were pressed at 400kg/cm2.
Two years ago I seem to remember the presses going up to 450kg/cm2, I didn't look at any other presses this year other than the ones doing ours, is 400 normal or do you think someone was keeping a bit for themselves, we didn't stay and watch them take the pressure off, maybe another mistake or not.

Stribs

So if your yield had been 14% or 15%, what amount would you have lost to any possible light fingers? 3 or 4 litres of oil at the most perhaps.

We finished picking our 43 olive trees last Wednesday, just before the weather broke here in Abruzzo. The two of us did it in two batches. In our first session, we picked over a period of two and a half days and got 240 kg of olives which we took to the mill on the evening of the day we finished picking. We then had a break of a few days because of other commitments. Our last harvest session consisted of at least six hours a day for another four days to finish off the trees, from which we got another 430 kg of olives.

The yield was a total of 91 kg of oil (101 litres), which works out to be 13.5% oil by weight. That’s a lot of oil for us to get through – given that we still have oil left over from last year – but not a fantastic yield figure. As said earlier in this thread, the wet weather we've had resulted in the olives having a higher proportion of water to oil than would have been the case in a drier year. However, the total amount of olives we harvested is nearly four times what we managed last year after the drought. Then, we got 180 kg of olives and 30 kg (27 litres) of oil: a yield of 16.7%.

The most interesting thing this year is that I had the second batch of oil tested for oleic acid level. For anyone unfamiliar with the intricacies of olive oil, it is the level of oleic acid in the oil which partly determines whether an oil can legally be called "Extra Virgin". Standards vary, but the upper limit is somewhere between 0.8% and 1.0%. Ours tested as having 0.5%.

Taste, smell and mouth-feel also come into the equation when deciding if an oil is Extra Virgin. Since I'm no expert, I cannot comment on these qualities in our oil other than to say it smells nice and tastes like what I expect oil fresh from the mill to taste like. I don't have a particularly sensitive palate or nose, but I'm not able to detect any "off" flavours or scents.

The reason I find this interesting is because, of that last batch of fruit, a quarter had been picked four days before pressing, another quarter three days prior to pressing and a further quarter two days before going to the mill. Only one quarter was picked and pressed within the advised 24 hours, but that doesn’t seem to have adversely affected the oil.

However, I do wonder if the recommendation might not be very sensible as a general rule. On our last day of harvesting, two of our elderly neighbours appeared and helped us with the last four trees. What we noticed is how they slashed away at the branches with great zest and were not at all bothered about stepping on fruit already on the nets. When we pick, we make a point of lifting the net and shifting fallen olives out of the way when we need to stand in an area where there is already fruit. We're also generally a bit slower and more careful with stripping the fruit from the tree than our neighbours were.

Perhaps that's just their style (we certainly weren't sufficiently upset about it to refuse their help) or maybe that's just the way the "pros" do it. If so, then I can understand the advice on processing olives promptly: one would not want to leave boxes (or, even worse, sacks) full of bruised and squished fruit of any sort sitting around any longer than absolutely necessary before processing.

We, too, were happy to leave our olives at the mill. It helps that a friend who we trust with our house keys while we're away works there, but I don't think we'd be too concerned about abandoning our olives at the mill even if we were using the mill because of a recommendation and a generally positive feeling about the operators. It was clear to us from the stacks of boxes sitting around the place that a lot of Italians were also happy to trust the mill.

Frankly, I don't think there's anything special about our olives. Certainly not special enough to justify standing around and getting extremely bored as our stuff makes its stately progress through the machinery.

As for Italians testing the oil they get back from the mill, I'm intrigued by the suggestion they do this to prevent trickery on the part of the [I]frantoio[/I] and I wonder what exactly they're testing [I]for[/I]? It would be reasonable for them to get the oleic acid level checked, but that alone says nothing about whose olives produced the oil. I suppose highly sophisticated analysis of trace elements could give some suggestion of what area of the world a batch of olive oil might have come from, but I think it’s highly unlikely that it would be enough to prove that a batch of oil came from one particular grove rather than from another a few kilometres down the road.

Al

Chief W
If we take your top figure of 15% we would have lost 4% which equals 20kg or 21Lit.
If we had pressed the full 1850kg we would have lost 74kg or 80 Lit.

We can't afford to throw that much EVOO down the drain, can you?

Stribs

"to pick and press within 24hrs", I suppose a big commercial enterprise might be able to achieve this, and whilst I realise the time between picking and pressing should be as short as possible hadnt heard of the 24hr optimum.our gap was much longer and our neighbours dont seem to worry that there is at least a week inbetween, and also seem to be of the cutting and slashing brigade. We try not to tread on them and to hopefully pick when it is dry and to store them in a dry shed, but what real difference do a few days make?No doubt someone might explain.
A

This has been a fascinating thread but I haven't spotted anyone saying that the new oil is not used by Italian country folk, for a while, it's left to "settle down" and only a few bottles are kept seperate to be used in the kitchen for bruschetta....well at least that's the case around here. I asked was this simply because there was still last years oil to be used up?... But no...new oil is too strong to use for cooking apparently????

[quote=chief Wiggum;104553]So if your yield had been 14% or 15%, what amount would you have lost to any possible light fingers? 3 or 4 litres of oil at the most perhaps.[/quote]
We had a yield of around 13% this year. Even using that low figure, Stribs should have received around 64 kg of oil (490 x 0.13 = 63.7). The difference between that and the 55 kg received is around 10 litres of oil. If the true yield was 14%, the loss was 15 litres.

Rather more than one might forgive being skimmed off the top for some bruschetta or comparison tasting.

In any case, it's always a nasty feeling when you suspect you've been diddled. I suspect this will prompt Noble to point out that this just proves his assertion that you should [I]never[/I] take your eyes off your olives as they're being processed. :smile:

Al

the answer lies in the wiki article in allans posting...its all very technical... and apart from that suggestion and the explanation as to why there are also reccomendations on i think...removing all oxygen from the oil cotainer..where you store the oil... it all reminds me of the sort of wine snobbism type of attitude... and i think in practice all best ignored... i mean we do not even wash our olives... before the press ...how bad is that....

Angie, I'm sure you're not suggesting it, but I didn't make up the "press within 24 hours of picking" dictum. I've seen this figure in various places. I've also seen 48 hours advised.

I think John is right to some extent: this does smack of snobbism and making things more difficult than they need be. However, I think most people would suspect that you'll not get particularly good results if you handle olives roughly while picking, cram them in woven polythene sacks while wet, toss them in the back of a trailer, sit on them for the trip from grove to home (we've seen this done), and then leave the sacks sitting in the sun for a week or two before taking them to the mill.

Somewhere between the two extremes is a happy medium which results in good oil without a huge amount of palaver.

As John says, the Wikipedia article says that "Oxidation begins immediately upon harvesting".

I don't understand why an olive should suddenly start to go off the moment it's picked. Obviously, any fruit will go bad if it's left sitting around long enough, but what I fail to comprehend is how how detaching an olive from the tree starts this process. I'm no botanist, but I understand that the stalk of a fruit only transfers nutrients and water from tree to fruit; the stalk is not a little umbilical cord that takes away waste products and so prevents the fruit going bad while on the tree.

This idea that fruit starts to oxidise as soon as removed from the tree sounds to me like highly dubious science. It reminds me of people who are adamant that an apple picked from the tree and eaten immediately is much healthier and tastes much better than one picked three or four days ago.

As far as washing fruit is concerned, that doesn't happen in the [I]frantoio[/I] we use and I see no need for it with our olives. We don't spray them, so the worst contaminants that you're likely to have on the olives is a tiny amount of clay transferred from our shoes to net to olives, or maybe a fraction of a gram of bird droppings in every [I]quintale[/I] of fruit.

Al

We are really pleased at the bumper harvest this year, not only because of the oil but because we use the olive stones to run our central heating and hot water in the winter.

Last year was a poor harvest and the fuel was €20 per quintale (delivered), We didn’t bother and used our alternative fuel (gas) which didn’t actually save us much in the end.

This year the price is €11 per quintale and we have stocked up so we know the maximum cost of keeping warm this winter and if the winter is not too long we will probably have some left for next winter too.

It is a wonderful feeling, knowing that we are ready for whatever the winter throws at us we will be warm and cosy and also that we are using a renewable energy source.

We recon that using the olive stones (at this years price) will cut our winter heating bill in half, which, in the present financial climate, is a bonus!

[quote=Nielo;103172]..............We recon that using the olive stones .......... will cut our winter heating bill in half, which, in the present financial climate, is a bonus![/quote]

Out of interest - can one buy olive stones?

.

Hi there,

Lots of very interesting posts - just wanted to add (for anyone doubting the usefulness of all this olive picking) a link to the health benefits of an olive oil rich diet:

The article begins with:

"The beneficial health effects of olive oil are due to both its high content of monounsaturated fatty acids and its high content of antioxidative substances. Studies have shown that olive oil offers protection against heart disease by controlling LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels while raising HDL (the "good" cholesterol) levels. (1-3) No other naturally produced oil has as large an amount of monounsaturated as olive oil -mainly oleic acid."

to read the full article click here:
[url=http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/olive-oil.htm]Olive oil's health benefits[/url]

I have always had an olive oil rich diet (given my Italian origins) so was always curious to know if others have seen a real change or health benefit once the amount of olive oil consumed increased...

Thank you all for your experiences and information. Waiting to hear more!

Enjoy your olive picking and Your Olive Oil!!

Cristiana

If you mean uncrushed olive stones I would think not, well at least not from the olive mills round here because the stones get crushed in the oil making process.

I believe that olive stones are quite hard to germinate so most people buy them as small trees, but I suppose the tree nurseries must be able to buy them somewhere.

[quote=Noble;103859]But no...new oil is too strong to use for cooking apparently????[/quote]
This is obviously a matter of taste and I know some peoples' palates are much more sensitive than mine and my partners, but we've used new oil in cooking (and bread-making) and not noticed anything at all unpleasant in terms of taste or smell.

True, new oil from green olives can be [I]very[/I] bitter when you taste it "straight", but the amount we use when cooking is actually only a small proportion of the final product, so hardly surprising it's difficult to taste the bitterness.

I'm sure some will consider it sacrilege and a terrible waste, but we've even used new olive oil for frying homemade chips. The results tasted fine, although they were – as usual when using olive oil to deep-dry – not very crispy.

Al

[quote=Nielo;103178]If you mean uncrushed olive stones I would think not, well at least not from the olive mills round here because the stones get crushed in the oil making process.

I believe that olive stones are quite hard to germinate so most people buy them as small trees, but I suppose the tree nurseries must be able to buy them somewhere.[/quote]
It's the norm for whole olives to go into the grinder.

The [URL="http://oliveoilsource.com/propagating_olive_trees.htm"]Olive Oil Source[/URL] page on olive propagation supports your belief that getting an olive seed to germinate is not easy, but the seedling has some interesting properties, specifically, that the main root goes straight down, so making the tree very resistant to drought. On the negative side, it takes a seedling olive at least 12 years to start producing fruit and, until that happens, you won't know for sure what you're going to get because the tree will probably be a hybrid.

For these reasons, olives are usually propagated by a vegetative process. The Olive Oil Source page has more details on the possibilities.

Al

The best chips I ever had in my life were in Puglia - fried in local olive oil. They were crispy and golden, light and fluffy inside. I'm wondering if perhaps different types of olive oils can be heated to higher temperatures than some others - or was it just a skilled cook and the type of potato used?