alfred@psivax.UUCP (Alfred Acken) (01/21/85)
Keywords:olives,
In response to your requests, Part 1 of Olive Processing at
Home follws:
The following instructions were given to me by a sweet
widow lady (Mabel Santos deceased).
In October
How to Prepare and Can Olives
1) Put olives in 5 or 10 gal wide mouth crock. (I use the
white plastic 10 gal pail that you can get from restaurants.)
Flood with 2% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) solution
( 2oz lye to 1 gal water ) caution! use rubber gloves
and take safty precautions on lye can.
2) Allow olives to soak in lye solution until the olive
meat turns yellow down to the pit.
(24 to 48 hours-see my comments at end)
3)Pour off lye solution and run fresh water through the
olives to flush out lye. You can test a cross section of
the olive with litmus paper (blue if alkaline). I run
water through them over night and then check.
4)Now begin to add salt brine-first 2oz of salt per gal
of water for 2days, then 4oz per gal for 4 days.
5)Wash the olives thoroughly and put in sterile Jars. Boil
brine at 4oz to gal-Pour over olives and seal.
6)When you open the olives for use, wash and leave in
cold fresh water with a few shakes of salt. Refrigerate after
opening and they will keep indefinately.
Comments:
The length of the lye treatment depends on several variables:
size,variety,maturity of the olive when picked.
Firmness and flavor of result.
The time can vary from about 12 to 36 hours.
This process of making the olive edible
is called Hydrolyzing.
More info and other processes will follow in Part II.
*From my half-acre in THE SANFERNADO OLIVE GROWERS tract.*
--
Al Acken
(Pacemaker Engineering at) Pacesetter Systems Inc.
{trwrb|allegra|burdvax|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!psivax!alfred