The best olive oils in Italy are those purchased directly from producers but, if you wanted to produce olive oil at home, know that you would obtain an excellent oil, called affiorato oil, which is the most prized among oils.
However, there are some considerations to make and steps not to forget when making olive oil at home. Here, then, we explain how to produce your own homemade oil, with the help of tools that can replace the classic mill to obtain a home milling. But before talking about how to crush the olives, let’s choose the best ones.
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Harvesting olives is a very important phase because not all olives are suitable for pressing and oil production. You will need to choose round, green, and fresh olives. Do not use wormy olives, those picked from the ground, or excessively ripe ones.
If you are fortunate enough to have a couple of olive trees, you can try this wonderful experience with a totally homemade production, starting from the raw material. Alternatively, you can choose to source from a trusted olive producer although, given the processing involved, it is not actually cost-effective. However, know that to produce oil, you will need a good quantity of olives. For one liter of oil you may need up to 7 kg of olives and a lot of patience.
Perhaps the game is not worth the candle, but if you like producing your own food at home, you will have a certain satisfaction in making olive oil with your own hands. Of course, you will have to press the olives several times and, if you have a few quintals of olives available, making oil at home with inadequate tools could be an impossible undertaking. In this case we recommend going to a mill that provides services for third parties, so that you can obtain olive oil in large quantities with your olives.
After harvesting the olives, we move on to cleaning. Let’s see.
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After harvesting, the olives must be cleaned of leaves and then washed well with clean water before being processed. It is better to wash them several times to clean them thoroughly. Then use a colander to remove excess water and dry them so that moisture does not form. The best thing is to crush the olives within 12 hours of harvesting.
Now it is time to crush the olives. Let’s do it with household tools that we may already have at home.
To crush the olives, you can use a cold press or a Thermomix with which you can easily obtain your olive paste. By inserting a couple of kg at a time into the Thermomix, you can run it at maximum speed for about 10 seconds. You will thus obtain an oily paste that, for the next 20-25 minutes, you will malaxate at minimum speed at a temperature of maximum 37°. Use the plastic butterfly for this procedure.
If you do not have a Thermomix, you can press your olives with a mill, a cold press, a blender or a kitchen food processor. You can also use a mortar and pestle if you want to go old school! Of course, you might never finish the processing due to the excessively long procedure and you would risk not producing even a spoonful of oil.
Once pressing and malaxation are done, we move on to the oil extraction phase with a press-all press.
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After the malaxation phase, you will have obtained an oily paste that you can place in a small press-all press. With the help of a neutral jute cloth that you will have previously immersed in hot water, you can easily extract the oil/water must.
Once the initial manual pressing is done, you can crush the olive paste further by acting on the handwheel of the press-all.
Let the paste rest for about 15 minutes, then tighten the press handwheel again with an additional turn and let it work for 5 minutes. After this step, little by little the oil is extracted and the liquid comes out of the press. This liquid is a mixture of oil and water that needs to separate. The oil, which by nature is lighter than water, will rise to the surface and with a kitchen spoon you can remove it with great patience.
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This oil, very prized, is called affiorato oil and is characterized by low acidity if produced with good quality olives, freshly harvested.
If you have followed all the operations, you have produced quality oil.
In summary:
Having done this, you will have obtained a liquid that, after the resting phase, will separate into oil and water. All you have to do is patiently collect the oil on the surface and put it in a dark bottle and close it well.
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Wait about a month before using it but, remember, even if olive oil does not have a specific expiration date, it is better to consume it within the year of production. After that it loses its organoleptic properties and may have lost its good taste. To learn about the expiration of olive oil you can read our dedicated article.
It is not at all simple to make oil at home, which is why, if you have many olives, we recommend contacting a mill in your area. Without effort you could obtain an excellent quality oil with the fruits of your olive trees.
Technician and expert in extra virgin olive oils, registered in the National Register, Campania section. Master oil miller with diploma, obtained from International Extravirgin Agency.
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