Brining Olives
Deb
I never knew this, but olives straight off the tree are too bitter to eat. But some clever folk, back in the day, discovered that they can be cured by being soaked in salty water. Probably in sea water back then. Maybe in sea water in some places still today. After 10-12 days, they become delicious.
A friend in our area has three olive trees, and she invited some of us over to show us how she brines her olives. We helped with the harvest a bit too.
She has kindly given me permission to share her methods with you all.
Harvesting your olives
Olives can be preserved either green or black. A black olive is a ripe olive.
As some of the fruit start to get a purple-black tinge to them, it is time to pick your green olives for pickling. The easiest way to pick your olives is to put a tarpaulin on the ground under the tree and either hand pick them off or use a rake with very widely spaced teeth. In the Mediterranean, they hit the Olive trees with a long pole to harvest the fruit, this action also breaks off small branches – thus lightly thinning the tree at the same time.
[At this point, you might also want to collect some of the excess olive leaves and dry them for winter teas, olive leaf extract being good for the immunity.]
Gather up the fruit and rinse well in water.
Prepare the fruit
The usual methods are to place the olives on a clean, hard surface and bruise the fruit with a rolling pin. Or pricking them with a fork works well too. Bruising or pricking them helps the salt and water to penetrate the fruit.
My friend doesn’t bother with this step. She just rolls the olives around in the kitchen sink each day when changing the water solution, and this seems to be enough.
While rinsing them each day, keep an eye out for any stalks, or for any damaged ones. Small dents are ok, but if the skin is broken there’s the possibility they’ve gone bad, so discard them.
Initial brining
Put the olives in a bucket of water with half a cup of cooking or coarse salt per 10 cups of water. This is a half strength solution for the initial soaking.
Note that the salt you use must NOT be iodised. Some say it shouldn’t have anti-caking agents either, but my friend hasn’t found that a problem. A non-iodised salt with anti-caking agents should be cheap and easy to find in the supermarket.
Place a lid (breadboard or upside down plate) inside the bucket, on top of the olives, to help keep the olives submerged.
Each day for 10 to 12 days
Pour the water out each day and replace with fresh salted water. Continue this for about 12 days for green olives, or 10 days for black olives. If you can’t be bothered seperating the olives, just combine them all together and soak for 12 days.
Are they ready yet?
To test the Olives, bite one. When the bitterness has nearly gone the Olives need one more final salting.
Pour off the last of the salted water and measure it so you will know how much salt brine will be required. Measure out that same quantity of water into a pot and dissolve the salt at the ratio of – 1 cup salt per 10 cups water (this is double the previous daily solution). At this stage you might choose to use a better quality salt. Boil this and allow to cool.
Meanwhile, sterilise your jars
My friend places all jars and lids in the sink and boils the jug, pours the just boiled water over all the jars and lids until full. Allow to cool a little so you can pick the jars up, swirl around the water then tip out. Let the jars cool to room temperature or only slightly warm before putting the olives in.
Some people prefer to place the jars in a pan and boil them on the stove.
I remember my mum used to bake the jars in the oven to sterilise them.
Bottling stage
Place olives in sterilized jars or bottles and then pour the salty brine over the fruit until covered.
Top the jars or bottles up with a centimeter of Olive Oil (extra virgin best). This stops air getting in and seals the lids down. Carefully move the jars without disturbing the oil top, place at the back of a cupboard where they won’t be disturbed.
The Olives will keep for up to 12 months in the cupboard. (My friend has kept unopened preserved olives for over 3 years, friends that she gave olives to report they kept for 5 years)
Wait at least one month before opening, six weeks is better.
Eat and enjoy
When ready to eat, taste an olive, if they are too salty to taste, put aside the liquid and fill the jar with cold water and refrigerate for 24 hours. Taste again and if ok add back to the liquid or put in a new marinade. If still too salty, repeat with another overnight soak in the fridge. You could also soak in hot water to remove more saltiness.
Once the correct salt level is reached you can add extra flavours like basil, capsicums, garlic and lemon juice.
A few extra notes from her
I’ve always let my olives go quite purple/black then pick them all so I end up with a mix of green and purple/black olives in my jars.
The birds like them so they may start eating them the riper they turn on the tree, apparently if you provide water in a bird bath they will eat less of your olives.
I don’t bother bruising the fruit it takes too long and I end up damaging too many. As above, roll them around in the sink each day when changing the water solution.
I use buckets with a dinner plate upside down over the top of the olives to keep them submerged.
For the final salting (brining) I put them in big jars, write the date on them and tuck them in the back of a cupboard.
I then put them in smaller jars with marinade flavours such as oregano, lemon, vinegar whatever. I can also eat them without rinsing and soaking, as I love the saltiness.
Olives Marinade
- 2 parts oil
- 3 parts malt vinegar
- Oregano
- Sliced garlic