Recipe: Curing Olives

If you have access to raw olives in your area, as we did when we lived in California, you should consider curing them yourself. The process is not all that hard, and quite fun to have buckets full of olives, rather than just a small can. We still have some treasured cans of home cured olives.

We have found that curing olives is easy. The suggested times are approximate, and if you go shorter or longer, the process is very forgiving. The times listed are for moving the process along efficiently. If you had to let the olives sit in a mixture hours longer, it really would not matter.

Uncured (raw) olives have a very strong, bitter taste. This can be soaked out with regular water changes over a months time. A much shorter method would be to immerse the olives in a lye solution, as described below. Take precautions when working with lye. Lye can cause burns. Wear chemical-resistant gloves and safety glasses whenever you're working with lye. The lye is a strong base, and nutralizes the raw olive acid. Once pH neurtal, you will want to infiltrate the olives with salt for taste. Then you can preserve the olives for later use.

It helps if you separate the olives into groups of similar size and ripeness. The black raw olives will cure a little faster than the green raw olives. Another benefit to sorting when the olives are raw is that the olives are easier to handle as firm and raw rather than after they are cured and soft.


Recipe

1. Mix 4 T lye in each gallon of water. Be sure the lye is completely dissolved. Cover the olives with the lye solution. Stir occasionally to be sure the olives on the surface are completely cured. Let the olives soak for 48 hours.
2. Pour off the lye solution and rinse the olives. I found the lye and the fat made soap suds when rinsed.
3. Mix 2 T lye in each gallon of water, and again cover the olives with this solution. Stir occasionally. Let the olives soak for another 48 hours.
4. Cut into a few olives to see if the lye has reached the pit. You can see the penetration of the lye as a color change in the flesh of the olive. If the penetration is not to the pit: rinse, and prepare a fresh lye solution as in step 3. Let the olives soak for 6 to 12 hours and test again.
5. Rinse olives thoroughly for 24 to 48 hours by changing the water 4 times a day. This will wash out the lye and you can test to see if the lye is gone by tasting an olive. If there is a very little of the lye left, it will be washed out in the next few steps which adds salt to the olives.
6. Mix 2 T salt per each gallon of water. Cover the olives and let them soak for 24 hours.
7. Rinse well. Mix 3 T salt per each gallon of water. Cover the olives and let them soak for 24 hours.
8. Rinse well. Mix 4 T salt per each gallon of water. Cover the olives and let them soak for 24 hours.
9. Rinse well. Mix 5 T salt per each gallon of water. Cover the olives and let them soak for a final 24 hours.

At this point, the olives are cured, and ready to eat. You can refrigerate the olives and eat them fresh for several weeks. If you have more olives than you can use in this time period, then the olives should preserved in brine or by being canned or frozen.

Since you have removed the acid from the olive in the curing process, you would need to can then in a pressure caner: for a quart: 10 lbs pressure for 30 minutes. If you are at altitude, remember to make a time correction.

If you want to preserve the olives in brine:

1. 3/4 C salt per gallon of water                    1 week
2. 1 3/4 C salt per gallon of water                 1-2 weeks
3. 1 3/4 C salt per gallon of water                 Put into jars and exclude air

Note that if you preserve your olives in brine, they will be too salty to eat. You will want to place the olives in fresh water to draw some of the salt out before consumption.

We really enjoyed working with olives, and would continue if we still lived in California. At our high point, we were processing 50 gallons of olives at a time. Some time is required, but not a lot. The time would depend on the volume your are having to rinse, perhaps 5 minutes per 5 gallon bucket. I found placing a garden hose in the bottom of the bucket, and allowing the water to overflow the bucket would keep most of the olives in the bucket, and after a few minutes, they would be fully rinsed.

If you have access to olives, cure them yourself!