Preserving Olives (curing olives)

Hi All,

I thought I would share my story with Olives so far and seek some advice on where to go from here. I have a beautiful Kalamata tree at home that my wife has pruned into a feature for our backyard. We have had it for 5 or 6 years now and I believe it was 3 years old when we bought it. It crops well each year now and I have attempted for several years to cure olives from this tree, finally striking success this year.

My first attempts were to cure in water and brine following instructions from the internet. I tried this two or three times and they were all dismal failures. I found the time frames in the recipes were not remotely correct, and my olives at the end of a process lasting several months were still completely bitter and unpalatable.

Following this I tried with Lye, but I left them in too long. I think this was due to my previous experiences, I thought I would err on the side of longer rather than shorter. Ultimately the olives lost all their colour and became very soft. They didn’t have any bitterness though which was a win. So this year, I used lye again but tried the olives every day until I was happy they weren’t bitter. I used 2 teaspoons of food grade lye per liter of water and changed it each day. Typically the water was jet black after each soaking, an encouraging sign that something was happening. After 3 or 4 days of this the olives were cured. I then soaked them in water for 3 days, changing every day, and then salted them in a brine of 220grams salt in a liter of water. This brine had about a half cup of white vinegar in it too. After just 12 hours the olives were salty, acetic and incredibly yum. I think they are just about perfect – although my wife would like a touch less salt. Overall though, im very happy with these olives.

Now, I have access to large quantities of Kalamatas from a farm (uncured) and I would like to try a side by side comparison of several different cures. I would like to try a water cure, a brine cure and a dry cure (packed in salt). Im open to any recipes basically – so long as they are proven to work. So if you have a recipe that you know works, I would love to hear it. Im going to get these olives in the next couple of weeks and then I will start.

Don

I am looking forward to hearing about how you get on . I am thinking of planting an olive tree in a sheltered spot and who knows one day we may get olives
David

Hi David,

I have attached some photos of the Kalamatas that I cured here, and i'll post again with some pics of another batch I am doing at the moment - with Lecinos. The Lecinos come from my mums house. I live in Canberra which has a supposed mediterannean climate - no snow but heavy frosts in winter and hot dry summers. Olives thrive here. We have four trees, but the Kalamata is easily the best. Its planted in a raised bed and has no competition from other trees. The other varieties (two manzanillo and one lecino) are in a different spot of the yard and arent grwing anywhere near as quickly.

Are you in France? Whats the climate like where you are?

Brendan

Lecinos. I am going to start brining these today. They were much riper than my Kalamatas were, and as a result have gone quite soft in the lye cure (lye is only reccomended for green olives). I will report back on how they taste in a few days.

Sort of off topic, but what climate do olive trees do best in? I have always wanted one but not sure where they grow best. I LOVE green olives and kalamatas!

I live in the Loire Vally . So its not quite medditerainian . Some Frost a little snow and gets to about 30 ish in summer

David

How do olives get all oily as when you buy them? Is additional olive added at the end, after the curing?

I ask, because I collect capers and caperberries here. The caperberries are quite a lot like olives. I cure (ferment) them in salt and pack in vinegar, and some with garlic and pepper, and they come out quite a lot like olives, but the oily quality would make them that much yummier.

Re best climate to grow them in. I think they are pretty forgiving. They can tolerate heat, cold and dry conditions. I dont think they would like a north.american winter (with months of snow) or the tropics but everything else would be a chance.

Rw oil coating. That happens in the optional marinating stage. After cure and salting. You mix oil with flavorings and store olives in this.

Don Smith wrote:Re best climate to grow them in. I think they are pretty forgiving. They can tolerate heat, cold and dry conditions. I dont think they would like a north.american winter (with months of snow) or the tropics but everything else would be a chance.

Thanks Don! I mean I know you can grow pretty much anything in California, but I just wanted to make sure.

Hi Cassie,

I was writing from my phone on the weekend so here is a more considered reply regarding climate. I have only been to California on holidays (I live in Australia) but I would suspect large parts of California would be perfect for olives (like Napa valley). Im not sure how they would go down south where its super dry, but I think they would still be pretty good down there. It’s the snow which kills the tree – they are very good at tolerating dry and hot spells.

I believe that a certain amount of ‘chilling’ is required for the tree to set fruit…which explains why they don’t do well in the tropics. I was also reading up on Lecinos on the weekend and noticed that they are purported to be the most cold tolerant variety of olive and can indeed survive regular snow falls – but they are unique in this regard. Where abouts in California are you?

P.S I just finished eating a punnet of those Lecinos I pictured above. I marinated them in oil, cracked pepper, garlic and fresh tabasco chillis – they are outstanding. They have a stronger olive flavour than the Kalamatas, although they are not quite as firm (but still have a good texture). Very happy with them.

Don

P.S the riper lecinos were quite soft after curing in the lye, however I let them air dry for two days before brining them for two days and they firmed up heaps. They have a great texture now.

I live in the north bay. San rafael. So they would probably do fine. I do live in a suburban aread though and have a huge redwood tree in my backyard that some dummy planted and so now most all of my backyard is shaded for most of the day. You are making me drool with all the talk about the lecinos! They sound so good.

I just found this awesome article about planting olive trees in pots! It is apparently totally possible! That is awesome.

How to grow an olive tree in a container!

Hey olive people. Just checking back in with you. I was just poking around on groworganic.com and found this stuff about olive trees and it reminded me of our discussion on this thread. These guys apparently can send you whichever kind of tree you want in case you can't find the ones you are looking for in your area. Pretty cool I'd say.

Growing Olives!

welp, it's that time of year again! olive harvesting!

my friend and I harvested all the olives off her tree in her backyard here in sonoma county, CA. then we just put them in a very simple brine, and will refresh them with a stronger brine in a week and then let em sit for 3 months. hopefully they turn out!

I'm in the middle of olive harvest here in Portugal too. It's the Galega variety that grows here. Most will be going to the lagar to be turned into oil but I'll preserving some for eating this year as well. This is how I cure mine. This batch, which was done in 2010, was only finished this year. So the olives kept for 5 years. The last lot were every bit as good as the first. Before eating them, I soak them in a couple of changes of fresh water for 24 hours to remove some of the salt, then put them in olive oil with pared lemon and orange peel, garlic and rosemary.

This year I'm also trying some according to this recipe.

I'm thinking some of Don Smith's initial problems with his Kalamatas could have been that most brine cure recipes are for olives half the size of Kalamatas so times would probably need to be doubled (or thereabouts) to allow the brine to get to work in the heart of the fruit.

The University of California Davis has an excellent guide to processing olives--and it's FREE!!! Here is a link to it: http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8267.pdf

I have done lye processing of green olives which have turned out fabulous! (Before I started processing olives, my favorites were Kalamata Style olives. After processing the green olives with lye and then a salt brine, they easily became my favorites. Even my husband eats them by the bowlful.)

I have also processed black olives in the Kalamata Style. They are very good.

I have also thrown some of the black olives into salt to dry them out. I wasn't really following any instructions for this, but I can't say the dried olives are anything to brag about.

The UC Davis instructions are very helpful and there are instructions for making all manner of olives.

Hope that helps.

Interesting to see all of the different methods. I'm also in Portugal, and curing olives from the extreme north, almost on the border with Galicia (Minho is the region). Wendy, I think my variety is also Galega: they're small, oval-shaped fruits, and very dark in color when completely ripe. I took the advice of a friend and mixed it with various Portuguese recipes I found on the net. I only harvested maybe two kilos, as this is my first year (and I only have one olive tree!), but I divided them. I should note that I harvested in mid-October, so my olives were a mix of green to black and anywhere in between. I didn't separate by color/ripeness, and I just rinsed them in water. I think perhaps the most important rule (at least judging from what the Portuguese have told me) is to use either well water or spring water (i.e. not chlorinated).

With one portion, I left them in water in a wine cellar in glass jars, and will check on them monthly; they'll supposedly be ready in about 6 (!) months. According to my friend, this is the most "traditional" way, and as with many crops, one spends the summer consuming last year's crop. He did his olives this way last year, and I can attest that they were excellent. I didn't seal the jars that they're in, because mine were releasing some gas (CO2?), and I didn't want the jars to explode or the lids to pop off.

With the second portion, I'm changing the water every day, and usually it looks like diluted cranberry juice in color when I dump it out. I've tasted these periodically, and after about 15 days, they're definitely still bitter, but are becoming palatable. I hope that they'll be ready after about a week more.

About 1 week after starting that process, I divided the second portion as follows: I'm maintaining the same process with one bucket.
With a second bucket, I'm changing the water daily, but with salt (I usually eyeball it, about 2 teaspoons of salt per 750 ml of water).
With a third bucket, I put them into glass jars in a brine solution (90g salt, 100 ml apple cider vinegar, 1L water) with spices (peppercorn, lemon slices, coriander seeds, thyme, whole garlic cloves), screwing the lids tight. In the space at the top, I put about a finger's worth of olive oil, to keep them from contact w/ air, and stored them in the back of my cabinet in the kitchen (sadly, no cool room available!). I'll probably open one of these jars in about 2 weeks to a month to see how they're doing.

I didn't try a salt cure this year, maybe next year! Great salt is so abundant and cheap here that it would definitely be easy to try.

I have heard of two tricks to greatly reduce curing time while only using water: one either hits each olive with a wooden hammer or makes several indentations with a knife along the surface. This allows the liquid to penetrate more fully and leech out the bitterness more quickly. The drawback is that it greatly compromises the texture of the olive, and they don't keep as long. If you want olives for next week, and you're going to consume them all in a few days, I think this is the way to go.

If I remember, I'll have to report back in a few weeks when I feel they're ready. Maybe I'll post pics too if I figure it out. This year saw many firsts for me. I also harvested my chestnuts and walnuts for the first time!

David Livingston wrote:I am looking forward to hearing about how you get on. I am thinking of planting an olive tree in a sheltered spot and who knows one day we may get olives
David

I grow olives in Texas after everyone told me I was nuts and that they wouldn't grow here.  Winters here can get cold (-12 C) and the summers are hot (40C).  A lot of it depends on the variety that you choose.  Some varieties will tolerate the cold if they're sheltered.  Others just die if the temps are blowing freezing for more than a few hours.  Choose your variety carefully.  It may take some experimentation to find one that works for you.  In general, I have found some of the Spanish varieties to be more adaptable than most of the others.  

Olives do not grow quickly so this means that they'll need "juvenile" tree care for a lot longer than most anything else to become really established.  For example, we normally only water new trees for the first 2 or 3 years here.  Olives get that for the first 10.  I recommend getting one of the 1m watering spikes and pushing it further into the ground each year.  Drip irrigation through that if you can otherwise long intense watering that encourages wide deep roots.  You'll need to move the spike around the tree periodically.  

Olives need a lot of sun so pick a spot that's full sun or as close to it as you can manage.  

Unless you enjoy killing yourself moving a large heavy tree twice a year, I recommend planting them in the ground.  Outdoor containers, when it freezes, will often freeze the rootball too and that'll kill your tree.  If it's in a pot, no matter how big, it needs to be moved.  Until I invent a tree-moving robot, I'll avoid containers.  

If it's cold, shelter them from the prevailing winter wind and try to pick a spot that tends to stay a bit warmer than most spots in your yard,  If you get an unusually cold winter (looking at you Winter 2020/21 when we hit -22C for a few days), be prepared to cover your tree and possibly provide a heat source to keep your tree alive.  Something like one of the pex solar water heaters and a rain barrel filled with water work most of the time when just shelter alone isn't enough.  Just be sure to stop the circulation when the sun goes down or it will actually start working as a radiator pulling the heat away from the tree.  Failing that you may need to supply external heat (wood, electric, etc.) to keep it alive through the cold snap.  

Watching this thread with interest. My little Arbequina tree has fruit on it for the first time this year. It’s only a handful, but I’m excited nonetheless. I bought it on a whim from a palace of temptation local nursery about six years ago and this is the first year that it’s shown any significant growth. (I guess it helps that we put up fencing so that the deer don’t keep sampling it—and then spitting it out—as they pass through on their way to eat my garden.) Hooray for olives!

Hi, this is my first post. I'm not sure whether it makes sense to add to an old thread or start a new one, but better to do it wrong, I think, than not do it at all.

I have an olive tree on my property (in north central California, near Sacramento). I tried curing some olives last year, and was quite successful. This year I'm doing it again on a larger scale (about five liters of olives), and  want to experiment with several ways of finishing them. But I have accumulated several questions from my experience.

First, how do you harvest them? The first year I just picked them up off the ground. This year I got a fruit net, which gave them a little cushioning and made them easier to collect. I tried shaking the tree to get them before they were so ripe that they fell on their own, but it wasn't very effective because the tree is much, much, much bigger than I am. (It covers the entire width of my patio -- on one side -- and keeps growing branches over the house. I've thought about trimming it to make it easier to manage, but I have no idea how to do that properly.)

Second, is there a practical way to figure out what kind of tree I have? The fruit are pretty small, about 2 cm long, and the leaves... look like olive tree leaves. I'm pretty sure that the person who planted the tree intended it to be ornamental, not fruit bearing. (And he never thought about how ornamental it would look when it got big enough to shade the house!)

Third, how long is a harvest supposed to last? I thought my tree was done around Thanksgiving, and shortly after that I had contractors working on my house, which ruled out using the fruit net. A month later I see more olives lying on the ground, some of which look pretty fresh... I'm not trying to harvest them, but I wonder whether I should extend the "harvest" into December next year. I know, if I picked the olives off the tree I wouldn't have this issue, but that's not possible at present.

Fourth, how do you keep the olives under water? I'm using Mason jars, and this year I bought fermentation weights, which worked great for a couple of weeks... then the olives shrank and retreated below the neck of the jar, and now when I drop a weight in, the olives just pop up around the edges.

Fifth, if I'm going to flavor them with herbs in the finish brine, how much is enough? I've read instructions for flavoring olives with rosemary, garlic, and various other things, but none of the sources give quantities. A ten centimeter sprig of rosemary per liter? Or ten of them, chopped up? One chopped clove of garlic or four?

Hi, Jonathan! Welcome to permies! And, I agree - better to post than not. This is an older thread, but here, that's actually a lovely thing. We believe perennial threads are a great thing. 😁

Just fell over this post. I was looking at a property with about 15 olive trees in production, the owners harvested olives worth 24 bottles (5L each) of olive oil this year (not sure which variety but Andalusia is big on olive oil production as far as I know), which sounds fantastic to me given that I could have my very own supply of olive oil. I've helped harvest olives this year since a local friend of mine's family have hundreds (maybe thousands?) of olives... That it crazy amounts of work to me. But then again, I'm just looking to have my own oil.

Here's my question to you, since you seem to have a yearly olive production which points out to me that you have some know-how: On the day of the viewing with the realtor, the gardener was on site, and so I would ask him a bunch of questions about the production and such; I would also ask him if the olives were organic... He would say "Yes, the only thing we put on them is fertiliser" (he may not know what the store bought fertilisers are sitting in). He also mentioned another thing they would do to the trees once a year in order to get production, and that failure to do so would mean no production... I don't recall the word of the thing he talked about... Anyhow, do you get a consistent yearly crop of olives? Any important tips you could give to a newbie (small scale) olive tree farmer?

@Nikolaj Vinicoff   I'm tremendously underqualified to help you. You know the bumper sticker that says, "I'm not a cowboy, I just found a hat"? (Maybe not, if you live near Gibraltar.) Anyway, I'm not an olive farmer, I just found a tree.

I'm only collecting fully ripe olives (as I said, when they fall), and I'm only curing them; I haven't considered making oil.

I know nothing about care and feeding of the trees. I hope we can both learn something from the comments of others.

My experience with harvesting wouldn't help you. As I said, shaking the tree has little effect. As for beating it with a one-meter stick... imagine beating an elephant with a pencil. It would have about as much effect.

I think the tree is about 20 meters high. It has grown without much attention since... probably since the house was built, about 60 years. There are massive branches near the ground, and more massive branches above those, and more above those. If I had a ladder big enough to reach the upper branches, I couldn't set it up, because there would be no room. The olives must grow mostly near the crown, where there is direct sunlight, because I never even see many of them on the tree. I only see them after they fall.

I can't even imagine how to prune a tree like that for production, unless I cut it down to ground and took control as it grew back. I'm going to engage an arborist at some point, and I'll ask them about this. They may tell me it isn't possible.

And I'm afraid I don't have a clue what the thing is you're supposed to do to get production. Maybe I'd get lots more olives if I did it. Maybe I'm already doing it without knowing it, although that's unlikely, because I'm not doing much of anything except picking up the olives and preventing the tree from attacking my house.  You can probably find clues to this "thing" if you read some introductions to olive culture on the web (as I should).

I have one comment on your picture. It appears that those two trees are on rather uneven ground, with a steep dropoff on the right. I can testify from my very limited experience that that makes harvesting the fruit and pruning the tree much, much harder. I've never actually seen an olive orchard, but I imagine them situated on flat or gently sloping land.