"Les Norton" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I recently moved into a home with a huge Olive tree in the back garden.

When/how should I pick the olives ?
And how do I process them for table olives or olive oil ?

Any help much appreciated.

Cheers,
Les.



Les,

Unless you are really keen and have an olive press etc, give up on the oil
idea, but if you feel the need let the fruit ripen till fully black then
pick them. Press the fruit in your new olive press and run the juice into
containers, the oil will separate and float to the top then you decant it
off into bottles. It takes many kilos of fruit to get a bottle of oil so
keep pressing. You will start to realise why good olive oil costs so much -
but oh the taste.
Dry bread dipped in fresh oil, a glass of wine and Dean Martin on the CD
player - don't forget the invite.

Pick your olives for table use either when they have changed to light yellow
/ green or any of the ripening stages through to fully purple / black. It's
a personal taste thing although the riper ( is riper a word?) they are the
less bitter they start out thus the quicker the process.
Pick the fruit by hand to avoid brusing and soak the fruit in fresh water
for 14 days changing the water every day ( 20L plastic buckets with lids are
good for this). Then make a brine solution with enough salt desolved in it
to make a raw egg float ( I think it is about 100g per litre but the egg
thing is a traditional indicator). Soak the olives in this for 2 weeks then
change the brine. (The timing isn't real important providing you leave them
long enough to leach out the bitterness). Do this a couple of times then
start tasting them. Once they taste good to you you tranfer them to jars
with oil and flavorings (lemon peel, garlic, cardoman etc) or leave them in
a bulk container of brine with several cloves of garlic and a handfull of
bay leaves etc. If leaving them in brine you float some olive oil ontop to
prevent mould developing and just scoop out as many as you need at a time.

There are heaps of variations on this but all of the safe methods involve
soaking out the bitterness and preserving in brine. Avoid the methods using
caustic soda unless you know what you are doing and are in a real hurry.

Oh, I nearly forgot.. Then you send me a jar and I tell everyone what a
great job you did with those olives.

Cheers
Col