2005 Crop of Fresh Olives
The 2005 crop for fresh olives has been slightly delayed because of the extended period of cool weather we've experienced in Orland, California. As the crop develops in the next few weeks we will have pictures available and estimates for harvest times. The crop is developing normally.
Last year we offered Sevillano and Manzanilla. We plan to offer a new variety of olive this year, the Lucques olive.
To order fresh olives during the season of availability, please go to www.greatolives.com.
We have just posted a lye cure process today, 9-23-05.
Please come back for an ongoing discussion of fresh olives and how to cure them.
For information about the 2006 crop, please go to the new post:
http://curingfresholives.blogspot.com/2006/06/2006-crop-of-fresh-olives.html
Last year we offered Sevillano and Manzanilla. We plan to offer a new variety of olive this year, the Lucques olive.
To order fresh olives during the season of availability, please go to www.greatolives.com.
We have just posted a lye cure process today, 9-23-05.
Please come back for an ongoing discussion of fresh olives and how to cure them.
For information about the 2006 crop, please go to the new post:
http://curingfresholives.blogspot.com/2006/06/2006-crop-of-fresh-olives.html
posted by Maurice Penna | 7/10/2005 10:41:00 PM
27 Comments:
Please ask me any questions you might have in regards to curing fresh olives.
you want to finish curing your olives prior to pitting. raw olives do not pit well and bruse badly. you can darken your olives to some degree if you are useing the lye process. this can happen by leaving the olives exposed to air for several hours each day during the rincing process. you will not be able to get the dark black color of a california black ripe with out using ferrous glucanate.
Manzanilla olives do not pick and sort as clean as sevillano olives. If you require less blemish I would suggest the sevillano. You could also leave the olives exposed to air during the rinsing process for an hour each day and this will darken the olives masking the blemishes. The lucques olive will be harvested green because this is a traditional lye processed olive.
you need to process your olives seperatley because of size, varietal difference, and how the olives react during process to get the best results. Once processed and stabilized you can mix for table presentation.
Thanks for offering fresh olives. I can't wait to place an order next month. I have just moved to the Mid-west from Berkeley and I am really missing the Berkeley Bowl olive bar and the fresh picholines I could get at the Cheese Board. But now I can cure my own!
I have a Time-Life book on preserving (published in 1980) which has a section on curing olives. It has a step-by-step picture guide on curing green olives and then it lists some recipe variations. I will try and describe their techniques and give their recipes. I haven't tried any of them so I can't vouch for there success.
They don’t specify quantities but I suspect that you would want to do 3-4 lbs batches rather than make all 10 lbs at once. How long can you store uncured green olives before they start to loose their vitality?
Step 1: Put the olives on a tray with sides I plan to use a large baking sheet with a parchment paper lining. With a wooden mallet, lightly tap each olive to split the skin. Put the olives in a large bowl of cold water. Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for 24 hours.
Step 2: After 24 hours empty the olives through a sieve and wash out the bowl. Fill the bowl back up with water and refrigerate the olives for another 24 hours. Repeat this process for a total of 10 days.
Step 3: Pack the olives into a sterilized, non-reactive container. I plan to use an earthenware crock pot. Fill about ¾ full.
Step 4: Make a brine of 4 cups of water, 3 cups kosher salt, 2 ¾ cups dark brown sugar, 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig of thyme, 10 juniper berries, crushed, and 10 pepper corns, crushed. Combine all ingredients and boil for 5 minutes. You can add flavorings to the brine such as orange or lemon peel, dried fennel etc. Let cool. Strain it over the olives
Step 5: Cover and refrigerate the container. The olives will be ready to eat in a week or so and should last (fat chance) for several months.
A variation is to mix the raw olives in a slurry of wood ash. I am not sure what type of wood is used to make the ash. I am pretty sure you can’t use BBQ briquettes! But maybe hardwood charcoal ash will work? Anybody know? But the basic recipe seems to be; mix four pounds of raw, un-cracked green olives with 4 quarts of clean wood ash, mixed with water to make a thick, runny paste. Leave them (I guess refrigerated) for 10 to 12 days, stirring several times each day, until the olives detach from the pit easily. Then you go to step 2 above and cure them. But you don’t need to crack them as in step 1.
I hope this is interesting and useful and I look forward to trying out both variations.
Tim
The olives are a fresh fruito I would start to process them as soon as possible after receiving them. The object of cracking the olives is to be able to leach the bitterness out. You can do more good in changing the water twice a day for the first 5 days then daily for an additional 5 days. There is no benifit to refrigerating the olives. I think 3 cups of salt to 4 of water is very salty, a 4.5 % to 5 % salt will give you an olive after it equilibrates that would be more palitable. That equates to 1/2lb. salt to 1 gallon of water. Step 4 of your receipe sound okay as far as the spicing, I have never used sugar. You will have to refrigerate because of the sugar and no vinegar, fermintation can start. I would stay away from the wood ashes and go with red devil lye that you can buy from the store because of known strenght We will have an easy to follow lye process on our we site shortly.
drtisbeter
exposing to air for short periods of time does not have nay negitive effect on the texture. the lye processing of the luques olive is the tradional way of curing the olive.
laura
oil cured olives can be stored for many years, the key is to dry them sufficiently so there is inadequate moisture to support spoilage organizims. then at time of usage the olive can be blanched in boiling water and retossed with olive oil for use. lye processed olive can last for 6 to 9 months in the refrigerator, but the enzyme activity will eventually cause sofening of the tissue and impart an unpleasent smell. this can be taken care of by making a 1% vinegar brine, 1 part of 5% vinegar to 4 parts water.
Hi, I am looking forward to ordering the Lucques olives and noticed your comment that they are traditionally lye cured. I would prefer to use your Mediterranean Partida Style Recipe - do you think it will be tasty with the Lucques or would you recommend a different olive variety?
Also is the recipe for 10#s of olives?
THX!
drea
you can use the partida process to cure the lucques variety, all you are doing is breaking the skin so the bitterness will leach out of the olive. since this is a new variety for us we do not have a lot of experience but we did notice when we fermented the olives last year it gave up it bitterness quickly compared to other varieties. the partida receipt is for 2.5 lbs. so just X 4 for 10 lbs.
Marty
Using vinegar and keeping refrigerated the olives will last a year or more.
Marty
Kosher or pickling salt will work fine.
gary
i don't know why your olives would have developed an off flavor. it is not customery to acidify olives if you are doing a hot fill and hold per university directions.
fesenjen
ceramic croc is great but probably the cheapest and the most accesable is a plastic 5 gallon pail with cover.
Albert
by changing the water dailey there will be no residual lye in the olive after 5 or 6 days. the water will no longer have any brownish color. don't be afraid of lye JUST USE IT PROPERLY. sodium is an industrial chemical used in the preparation of lots of foods.
Maurice,
We received our Lucques and they looked beautiful! Then we cracked them and put them in water and they are turning brown.
We hit them each with a hammer to crack them, but perhaps we hit them too hard. Would you suggest slicing them with a knife instead?
Also, if any of the olives are exposed to the air they turn brown too, so for those of you just getting your olives make sure they don't sit at the top of your jar!
albert
the greenish color to the rinse water is the color pigment of the skin. if there is no bronish color to indicate residual lye you can stop rinsing and put about .4 of a lb or less of salt and the olives will be ready to eat in a couple of days.
paolo
cracking the olives or slice is done so the bitterness will leech out into the water that you are changing dailey. so preperations are cracked more so the pit can be removed. as far as discoloration, this will happen with cutting and more so with cracking. this olive will remain crisp unless you use a olive with higher maturity.
albert
i am pleased at your success and enjoyment at curing your own olives from scratch. the flavor can not be replicated by commercially produced olives because of the regulations. i hope your friends and family enjoy these olives in the comming hollidays.
albert
i ran out of room, but watch our site and in the next week or so i will post some cures for tree ripe olives.
jannyca
you can use white vineger or red wine vinegar, for the exotic, some chardonnay vinegar. for the hot water bath process, a salt brine is sufficient.
barbara
plastic, stoneware, crockery, stainless steel are all ok. i would never use aluminum or steel.
paolo
if you are using the dry rock salt method the olives need not be sliced since you will desicate the olives over a 5 to six week period.
the 1st week move the olives every two days, 2nd and 3rd week every 3 days, 4th-5th week every 5 days. it has to be done to change the contact points of the olives.
Maurice -
I bought 30 pounds of olives from you back in September (you may remember me...fyi we ended up finding the olives, an employee "hid" them by accident).
Anyhow...we have recently purchased an olive press and we would love to try it out to produce olive oil...we're looking to buy about 150 pounds of olives asap. Can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!
I see several posts where you say you're going to post a collection of various curing techniques... is that still the plan?
How long can freshly picked olives last before they must be cured? Will keeping fresh olives in the refrigerator make them last longer so that we don't have to cure them all at the same time?
Fresh olives should be cured as soon as they are received. Please ask future questions in the 2007 post for fresh olives and I can provide a quicker response, thanks for your question.
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