On 8/16/2019 at 6:30 PM, kayb said:I am fascinated by the potential to brine olives and press olive oil.
Well, you *can* press olive oil at home. I did. BUT, wow, what a lot of work.
Picking olives isn't bad, at least the ones you can reach. Then sort and clean, not hard.
Grinding the olives down to paste is OK, if you have the right equipment. Some use a garbage disposal bought and used exclusively for grinding the olives into a container. I used my electric meat grinder and it did alright.
The paste needs to be agitated (Malaxation) for about 40 minutes to get the olive oil globules to separate. I used my Kitchenaid with the paddle attachment.
Then, the paste was placed onto cheesecloth in the press so it makes a flat round. Cheesecloth was wrapped over the top of the round. The round was pressed and repressed (after flipping) several times until as much liquid was removed as possible.
The juice is then left to rest to allow the oil to float on top of the olive juice.
I did maybe 3 lbs of olives, and got.............a scant 1/4 cup of oil. It's good oil. But it would take weeks to get a full bottle at this rate.
I think I'll stick with brining.
