The Basics Of Making Gourmet Olive Oil
For many many years, going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, people have used presses to extract olive oil from the olive, the press is used to separate the olive oil and vegetation water from the solid body of the olive. Once these two have been separated, a decanter is used to separate the oil from the water. In able to gain a fine olive oil, there is a process that must be used before the olive is pressed.
After the olive harvest has taken place, the olives are placed under a millstone or ground stone for thirty to forty minutes to ground them to a paste called olive paste. The olives are left under the stone for this amount of time to achieve the flavor they need and to form large olive oil drops. The aromas that the olive enzymes let out are also need to create a better aroma for the oil.
Once the olives have been grounded the paste is placed on fiber disks. These fiber disks are stacked one on top of another and put into the olive press. Pressure is then placed onto the disks, compacting the olive paste and percolating the olive liquid and vegetation water. To make this process a lot less complicated, water is run down the sides of the press to facilitate the percolating process.
When the pressing process is over the two liquids are placed in a traditional decanter to separate them, although this process can also be done using a vertical centrifuge. This process separates the two liquids a lot faster then when using a traditional decanter thus completing the process of olive oil extraction a lot quicker.
Every time the process of extracting oil from the olives all of the machines must be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. This is because any paste or oils left on the machines can ferment and therefore contaminate any new oils that will be done in the future. After the cleaning is finished, a final inspection will take place to make sure they are fully disinfected.
There are both advantages and disadvantages when using this method of extraction to make olive oil. The advantages are that there is a better grinding of the olives and due to less water usage; the oil is pomaced a lot easier. The difficult cleaning process, a wider time between the harvest and the pressing of the olives and the amount of manual labor are some of the disadvantages.