Wow, that sounds like WORK!

A diluted bleach solution and nail brush may take care of the stains! I keep a small bottle in my shower all the time, handy for berry stains and red clay dirt from the garden. I've never tried it for olives.

Deanna

Olives needing a lye soak? Maybe the pickling lime may be a better choice. Its also very high alkli, but not as caustic as lye (lye-think granulated Draino). The lye or any alkali soak, should be rinsed off very well in many water rinses for several minutes. You mentioned a bitter taste, or is it sour? Bitter may indicate that the lye was not all removed. It does get into the olive fibers as well as in the oils present. I have a small bottle of unfilered EVOO and its got sediment at the bottom. Its great for a dipping oil with added herbs. Are you planning on home canning these olives? Keep in mind that their oil can go rancid and its usually not recommended to do this in home canning. Olives are usually only pickled in a salt brine, as opposed to a vinegar or other acid. The other option is oil cured which takes a while and the oil must be stable enough not to spoil or get rancid.

It's interesting to hear about your experiments with olives, Westelle. That's something I would like to do, but we can't grow olives on this coast.

Ken, I think Westelle is correct in using lye (sodium hydroxide) which is a strong alkali and is used in other food processing, making hominy from corn, for instance. It certainly does require careful handling and thorough rinsing. Weaker alkalis, such as lime (calcium hydroxide) or even baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) can be used in some cases but they are not so effective.

I like olives, especially those funky Italian and Greek types.

Jim

Locally, Joe Pace and sons, a local gourmet store has fresh made italian sausages and about 10 different barrels of olives, green, black, big, small. But for me to try them is just not something like as a taste treat. To me they all seem salty and one time I made an olive bread with about 5 different types, but found it was a bit bland, as I should have added some herbs and garlic. Specifically what does the lye do? In cukes with calcium chloride (Pickle Crisp), its use is to block the long term effects the acid in vinegar does to cucumbers.

So glad to hear about your labors Westelle! nice to know that some folks process olives in California! I get really annoyed when people consider their olive trees a nuisance and they say they are dirty. Well yes, if you do not pick them and they fall all over the sidewalk they will get it dirty. Why not pick them and process them? I love olives and I would do something with them, but we have no olive trees.

My family in Europe processes them just with salt. My favorite type are the black wrinkly ones that are oil cured? I think only salt processed? Those are the ones I buy. They are a little bitter but in a good way. I wonder why the salt did not work for you.

All the green and black olives you buy in jars in the store are all processed with lye as a first step. It is what takes away the bitterness. The "black" ones are really green ones that had air pumped thru' the lye solution turning them black.

Yes, several rinses and soaks are needed after the lye solution is drained off.

Then the olives go into a brine solution for about a week. After that they can be salted, oiled, marinaded, or re-brined for storage. No, I won't try to can them, just refrigerate them.

I keep my one tree fairly short, partly for ease in picking, but also to limit the amount of fresh olives I get. This year I had about 2 gallons.... of which only 1 gallon were still green because I didn't get out to pick them when I should have. We're not big olive eaters so the few jars I make is more than enough.

Hi,
Just my 2 cents here. About 30 years ago I was friend with a lebanese family. Every year the mother bought a case of green raw olives. She cracked each one (smashed it with something heavy...maybe a rolling pin) then soaked them in a salt brine ( I can't remember how much salt...maybe enough to soak an egg in) for about a week. I don't remember what she did afterwards but they were so good.

This topic came up before - back around Feb 2007. I knew that I had copied an article and after plowing thru lots of good stuff (mostly from GW), I found it.

If you do a search on emeraldworld.net/curing.html, it will bring up several pages on different ways to cure olives. There is also reference to the book "Lost Arts" by Lynn Alley, that the article is taken from.

I thought it sounded interesting and perhaps might give it a whirl, but like you, the lye bath sort of left me "disenchanted" somewhat. Was surprised, however, that olives could also be brined, which would be a bit similar to ferment pickling, and that would be the way I would go, I think.

Fun - isn't it?

Bejay

My friends who used to live in CA (now in OR) preserve their own olives. I don't even like green olives, but I LOVED these tiny picholine-type that they cured with lye, and then they canned them along with a few hot peppers and maybe a garlic clove or two in a vinegar-based pickling brine. Delicious, and not at all bitter!

--Gina

Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious

Like I said earlier, I couldn't get lye last year and so made 3 different salt and brine versions to see what each was like. None was what we cared for..... personal preference. Also, those processes all took forever.

Doing the lye part was quite easy. The hardest part was finding something large enough that wouldn't react with the lye --- a large hard-plastic bucket is doing this duty this Fall. I have the book "Lost Arts" and so will need to check it out for new ideas.

Oddly enough it is the olive oil making that has me the most excited.... "they" say it can't be done at home, but I've got 1 cup of beautiful olive to prove that that just ain't so!

I suspect that if the pits were removed, you could run the olives through a Roma/Villaware food strainer and extract some oil. The exiting pulp would be run through a few times to squeeze out any more of the oil.

Making olive oil is similar in some ways to making cider, which is also made from a hard fruit. The hard fruit must be ground up, it can't be pressed whole. Then the ground fruit must be pressed. The juice or oil won't drain out on its own. High pressure is required.

The so-called "home" presses linked below are pricey and probably have greater throughput capacity than you need, depending on how serious you get about this. At least you will get some information about the process.

There may be a way to improvise. For example, use a food processor for grinding and a small wine press for pressing. I've considered building a cider press using an inexpensive hydraulic jack to apply the pressure. Tool companies such as Harbor Freight sell shop presses which are like I would make.

Good luck. It sounds fun.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Home Olive Oil Presses

And I thought what I used was a contraption! HAH!

I even tried extracting the oil with my juicer which actually did the most efficient job of all -- in very small amounts. I thought the oil might come out thru' the port; but the gook came out the port and the oil collected in the center... the juicer acted like a small centrifuge. I guess I could do many small batches and siphon out the collected oil.

It was fun to try.

My friend and I are processing about 30 pounds of olives right now. We work for a lab and have access to measuring in grams. Last year we met an old italian who does it every year. We measure 1 1/2 ounces lye (bought at farm supply) to one gallon water. This equals 28 grams when weighed on lab scale. 10 hours, drain, and do this one more time (for large green olives) Drain, and then cover with fresh water, change one a day until water is totaly clear. We then use a white stick that we dip in the water to make sure there is absolutely no pink coming out. (traces of lye) We then put in salt brines with or without garlic and hot peppers and keep in the fridge. Had rave reviews from all our friends! Rats my husband is a winemaker and owns a large bladder press, but says NO to pressing olives in it! If you are in Calif there are several olive oil companies that have community day, where everyone that has olives can come and process for a small fee. We have one this sat. in dry creek in Healdsburg Ca.

I'm thinking, "but where do you dump the left over lye?" - we have a septic system. I know, however, that soap is made from lye mixed with fat, so perhaps that is not a problem - ???

Maybe, I'll plant an olive tree - they do grow well here.

Bejay

bejay: we also have a septic system and I poured the lye water right down the drain. I don't think 2 gallons of lye water is going to be a problem.

bonjo: glad to hear that your first attempt at olive processing was a success. Mine are still sitting in the salt brine.