Posted by PHILEOS EVOO on September 23, 2024
Extracting oil from the fruit of the olive tree is a complex process, a challenge faced by the people of the Mediterranean for thousands of years. Today, highly sophisticated electronically-controlled milling equipment used by Phileos quickly replaces the large stone grinders used for centuries to crush olive drupes.
While these traditional mills are still widely used, the sector’s continued efforts to achieve the optimal organoleptic characterisitics and health properetieshave seen the technology used to produce olive oil change rapidly.
The technology behing the milling process
The incorporation of state-of-the-art technology has paved the way for the increasing quality of olive oil production.Producers can now tailor the transformation process to their specific needs, altering operating times, temperatures, atmospheric composition, etc. Without these advancements, we would not have the extraordinarily high quality of olive oils.
Successfully producing the highest-quality olive oil heavily depends on agronomics, technology and the experience of trained technicians. Phileos continually invests in the latest state of the art technolgy to ensure wee continue producing one of the best available olive oils in the market.
First step: crushing the fruit
Once the olives reach the mill (3-8 hours for Phileos of Sparta), the leaves left over from the harvest are mechanically removed, and the fruits are washed.
In traditional mills, olives are crushed with a procedure substantially unchanged for centuries: heavy grinders attached to a central column crush the fruits. Our modern mills use advanced machines with hammer breakers, blades or rotary disks, allowing for a quicker transformation of significantly larger amounts of olives.
Additionally, these tools greatly limit the exposition of the olives to oxygen compared to traditional methods, preserving their healthy and organoleptic properties.
Both crushing methods result in a raw olive paste made of the peel of the fruit, its pulp and fragmented pits. The paste also contains small olive oil drops and water, which is naturally contained in the olive drupes as they develop on the tree. This is one of the most delicate steps in olive oil making. Millers have to take into account the temperature of the olives themselves as they reach the mill.” If harvested on warmer days, such levels might easily exceed the 20 ºC to 22 ºC, which we consider the maximum to obtain a high-quality product.
Second step: kneading the olive paste
In a modern mill, the freshly-produced raw paste is transferred into the kneader, also called a malaxer. The kneader is a tank equipped with blades that slowly stir the paste. The stirring process allows the blades to break up the water-oil emulsions created by the crushing.
Furthermore, the process allows larger drops of olive oil to form, easing their separation from water, a crucial advantage for the final extraction. For the delicate process to succeed, the olive paste is gently warmed. Still, the kneading process temperature will never exceed 27 ºC in meeting the strict requirements for extra virgin olive oil. The temperature is considered the perfect balance between protecting the best qualities of olive oil and the production needs.
Kneading completion times vary significantly depending on the type of machines being used, the amount of olives, their stage of ripeness and the production goals in terms of quantity and quality. “The shorter the time, the better if your goal is quality,” Battelini said.
Third step: olive oil extraction
Given the goals of high-quality production, modern olive milling has adopted new means of extraction, no longer based on pressing. Oil extraction is now done with a decanter, or centrifuge, which spins very quickly to separate the oil in the paste from the water and pulp. Finally, the separated olive oil is transferred from the decanter into steel containers.
Depending on the machines’ specifics, olive oil coming out of the decanter might still contain traces of pulp, air or water. Filtering equipment is often used to speed up a natural process that would separate the olive oil from those particles, obtaining olive oil ready to be bottled and consumed.
How Phileos stores freshly produced extra virgin olive oil
Since the domestication of the olive tree, producers have adopted a wide array of containers to store their olive oil. Terracotta amphorae were used for a long time throughout the whole Mediterranean. Nowadays, glass and more modern materials, such as fiberglass and plastic, are used. Still, most extra virgin olive oil producers such as Phileos store their oil in stainless steel tanks capped with inert gas, such as nitrogen. Topping olive oil with an inert gas prevents oxidation.
The tanks are usually kept within a temperature range of 14 ºC to 18 ºC to preserve the olive oil’s healthy and organoleptic qualities. From there, olive oil may be bottled and distributed.
At Phileos EVOO Inc we control every stage of olive oil production to ensure that our customers receive one of the highest quality Extra Virgin Olive Oils in the market.