Contract Olive Pressing
We are available for contract olive pressing and here are some useful hints on harvesting and processing.
When to harvest your olives:
One guideline when to harvest is the olive fruit should be an even mixture of green colour, turning to purple and black. General Rough guide lines are 30% green, 30% turning purple and 30% black on the olive tree.
However, you may choose to pick earlier if the birds are starting to damage the crop. Early picking will result in loss of olive oil production but may be worth it in the long run if you're going to lose your crop to birds. An ‘in field’ test to check if your green olives are ready for processing is to squeeze the olive and if the liquid is clear you are too early. If the liquid is a milky white colour then it is ready for processing. Your oil will have a stronger character and the oil content will not be as high. On the other hand if you squeeze your black fruit and the juice is almost black and stains your fingers it is too ripe and starting to deteriorate and the acid level is getting high.
When harvesting take care not to bruise the fruit with rough handling and avoid leaving fruit lying in buckets for any length of time as they will begin to heat up and begin to ferment. The best practice is to spread the olives out on shade cloth or netting in a cool area. Do not store in deep containers with no ventilation as the heat generated very quickly will hasten the fermentation of the olives.
Preparing the olive fruit for processing:
Wash the fruit taking care to not bruise it as this will affect the quality of the oil. One simple method is to wash the olives in a wheelbarrow lined with plastic. Remove the leaves and excess stalks as they detract from the flavor of the oil.
If the olives have to lie overnight before processing spread them out in a cool area in very shallow plastic trays with ventilation holes or on a rack with a shade cloth base. We have a rack available if you bring your olives late PM for pressing early AM.
Storage of olive oil:
You will need to bring along a suitable container for your oil. Stainless steel or glass is best with wide necks (Not wine bottles). They must be very clean and free of any odours.
It is inadvisable to use disposable plastic bottles (juice or milk bottles etc) as they will taint the oil. The containers must be sealed and kept cool with minimum air content, and away from light. Leave the oil to settle for 2 days and then decant/siphon off the pure oil from the residue. The oil should then settle for a further 4 - 6 weeks and then be decanted again. A rough estimate of quantity of oil is 10-16lts for every 100kg of olives. This depends largely on the variety, growing conditions and ripeness of the fruit.
Important Notes:
Most important. If you are going to be delayed or wish to cancel please contact us.
Also if you have more olives than you have booked in please tell us ASAP if we are going to have to fit an extra press into the day’s schedule.
The minimum load for a press is 65 KG: the maximum load is approx 90kg.
