"Except the vine, there is no plant which bears a fruit of as great importance as the olive." Pliny
I've been mulling over what can be said about our first experience picking and pressing our olives. One always reads travelogues in which happy people are picking olives on sunny days in the Italian countryside, followed by a crush, and entire towns celebrating with a feast, in order to dip crusty bread in the olio nuovo, browsing from table to table to share every family's personal oil.
To begin our saga on a positive note, we learned a lot -- always important. In hindsight, we now know our day was too ambitious. There were only two pickers and two trees, which yielded 40 quarts of olives, which took five hours to pick, bringing us to 4:30-ish in the afternoon, and it was getting dark.
The average citizen might have called it a day at that point, gone in, warmed up by the fire with a glass of wine. Of course, we are not your average citizens. We were driven by a belief that we would just crush these olives, and in a few short hours, be sitting at the bar in our processing area with a dish of olive oil in front of us, some crusty bread, accompanied by a wonderful local wine from Paso Robles, so we plunged ahead toward the creation of our oil. Is it time for oil yet?
Not so fast, newbies. First, you must wash every one of the 40 quarts of olives. That only took a few hours. Then, it's time to crush them. That was the shortest part of the procedure. Done. Then comes maxalation. The container of the paste is placed in a larger container of hot water, to keep it warm. A slow agitator is then placed in the paste to gently agitate it, which eventually begins to separate the oil from the solids. This takes at least an hour. Okay, but have you got any oil yet?
Slow down, ranch hand. We're now at about 7:30 p.m. Now it's time for the conscientious artisanal oil maker to take the maxalated paste and begin to layer it between hard plastic slotted plates, filter mats and repeat, about 18 times until you have a very tall stack. That takes about an hour. Okay, you're ready to press. It's about 8:30 p.m. and takes about an hour to press. While that press is ongoing, the efficient assistant loads up the next stack, so as soon as that comes out of the press, the next stack is ready to go.
A discouraging report comes in from the cold, dark outside. It doesn't look like much oil is coming out. After reviewing the manual in the dark, we find that the entire first couple presses will absorb almost all the oil into the mats, which is a necessary step in the procedure, but essentially, you will get very little oil. The first press is for the machine, we are told by the manual. In an attempt to remain positive, we make the decision not to place our heads in the press and end it all right there and then.
Repeating the process several times brings the tired, aching workers to the last press at about 11:30 p.m., and finally to the last couple hundred buckets for cleaning and sanitizing and then on to cleaning all of those plates, remembering the precaution from the manual, place the saturated mats in a Ziploc bag and place in the freezer -- DON'T WASH THEM!!! -- or those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Don't wash the mats. Got it.
At this point, we're unsure whether we've even produced any oil, so the dirty, oily, exhausted aspiring oil makers finally turn off the lights in the barn at 1:15 a.m. and begin the long commute back to the house. There is nothing more we can do.
A new day dawns -- okay, actually, it is the same day, but it's light. We can almost walk, and we limp out to the barn to see if there is any oil yet. There is a separation beginning, which is positive. After hot showers and coffee, our lagging spirits were renewed and a decision is made to walk away from it for a few hours and let it "do its thing." Late in the day, a layer of olive oil began to form. Not gallons or quarts, even, but a layer, nonetheless.
We'll take our victory where we can get it, and giving a nod to those romantic stories -- because that's what they are, stories -- a loaf of crusty bread is carried out to the Wine Barn, and some oil is scooped off the surface and into an olive oil plate for dipping. The Ranch Manager insists upon having The Moment. After the panel of tasters finishes choking from how pungent the oil is, they declare, nonetheless, it is the best oil they've ever tasted.
Some time has passed in order for the team to regain their senses and attempt to permit their muscles to heal and to reassess the process. Improvements in the process can be made. First, and foremost, there will be a next time because there are still 13 more trees to be picked. We are not quitters. Secondly, a team will be present to be picking the olives while a team washes the olives, gets them maxalating, gets them layered in the mats and being pressed simultanesouly, thus eliminating working until the wee hours of the morning. Third, a discussion was had with the inventor of the mill and some suggestions were made to improve our yield. Those suggestions will be implemented. The olive oil team will go on to pick another day, the team will consist of about seven times more people than the original two, and one day -- maybe not this year or next -- an incredible oil will be submitted to the California Olive Oil Council in order to be graded for Extra Virgin status. You heard it here first.
Keep an eye out for us and our olive oil. As was mentioned earlier, we are not quitters.
Happy Harvest!
The Ranch Manager
To begin our saga on a positive note, we learned a lot -- always important. In hindsight, we now know our day was too ambitious. There were only two pickers and two trees, which yielded 40 quarts of olives, which took five hours to pick, bringing us to 4:30-ish in the afternoon, and it was getting dark.
The average citizen might have called it a day at that point, gone in, warmed up by the fire with a glass of wine. Of course, we are not your average citizens. We were driven by a belief that we would just crush these olives, and in a few short hours, be sitting at the bar in our processing area with a dish of olive oil in front of us, some crusty bread, accompanied by a wonderful local wine from Paso Robles, so we plunged ahead toward the creation of our oil. Is it time for oil yet?
Not so fast, newbies. First, you must wash every one of the 40 quarts of olives. That only took a few hours. Then, it's time to crush them. That was the shortest part of the procedure. Done. Then comes maxalation. The container of the paste is placed in a larger container of hot water, to keep it warm. A slow agitator is then placed in the paste to gently agitate it, which eventually begins to separate the oil from the solids. This takes at least an hour. Okay, but have you got any oil yet?
Slow down, ranch hand. We're now at about 7:30 p.m. Now it's time for the conscientious artisanal oil maker to take the maxalated paste and begin to layer it between hard plastic slotted plates, filter mats and repeat, about 18 times until you have a very tall stack. That takes about an hour. Okay, you're ready to press. It's about 8:30 p.m. and takes about an hour to press. While that press is ongoing, the efficient assistant loads up the next stack, so as soon as that comes out of the press, the next stack is ready to go.
A discouraging report comes in from the cold, dark outside. It doesn't look like much oil is coming out. After reviewing the manual in the dark, we find that the entire first couple presses will absorb almost all the oil into the mats, which is a necessary step in the procedure, but essentially, you will get very little oil. The first press is for the machine, we are told by the manual. In an attempt to remain positive, we make the decision not to place our heads in the press and end it all right there and then.
Repeating the process several times brings the tired, aching workers to the last press at about 11:30 p.m., and finally to the last couple hundred buckets for cleaning and sanitizing and then on to cleaning all of those plates, remembering the precaution from the manual, place the saturated mats in a Ziploc bag and place in the freezer -- DON'T WASH THEM!!! -- or those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Don't wash the mats. Got it.
At this point, we're unsure whether we've even produced any oil, so the dirty, oily, exhausted aspiring oil makers finally turn off the lights in the barn at 1:15 a.m. and begin the long commute back to the house. There is nothing more we can do.
A new day dawns -- okay, actually, it is the same day, but it's light. We can almost walk, and we limp out to the barn to see if there is any oil yet. There is a separation beginning, which is positive. After hot showers and coffee, our lagging spirits were renewed and a decision is made to walk away from it for a few hours and let it "do its thing." Late in the day, a layer of olive oil began to form. Not gallons or quarts, even, but a layer, nonetheless.
We'll take our victory where we can get it, and giving a nod to those romantic stories -- because that's what they are, stories -- a loaf of crusty bread is carried out to the Wine Barn, and some oil is scooped off the surface and into an olive oil plate for dipping. The Ranch Manager insists upon having The Moment. After the panel of tasters finishes choking from how pungent the oil is, they declare, nonetheless, it is the best oil they've ever tasted.
Some time has passed in order for the team to regain their senses and attempt to permit their muscles to heal and to reassess the process. Improvements in the process can be made. First, and foremost, there will be a next time because there are still 13 more trees to be picked. We are not quitters. Secondly, a team will be present to be picking the olives while a team washes the olives, gets them maxalating, gets them layered in the mats and being pressed simultanesouly, thus eliminating working until the wee hours of the morning. Third, a discussion was had with the inventor of the mill and some suggestions were made to improve our yield. Those suggestions will be implemented. The olive oil team will go on to pick another day, the team will consist of about seven times more people than the original two, and one day -- maybe not this year or next -- an incredible oil will be submitted to the California Olive Oil Council in order to be graded for Extra Virgin status. You heard it here first.
Keep an eye out for us and our olive oil. As was mentioned earlier, we are not quitters.
Happy Harvest!
The Ranch Manager
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