Recipe

Home Made Olives Recipe

Add Step-by-Step Photos	Thegoldminer / All my dishes 2 years ago This is how to make home made olives. They are incredibly addictive but this recipe requires a lot of work and is dangerous. You will be working with Lye, it is caustic and can be dangerous and cause burns. You need to know what your are doing. Th... More Prep:60m Cook:2400m Servings:10	Thegoldmine
	home made but be careful

Olives ready

Close up

In the bucket

Plastic to cure

Ready to cure

Plastic lid

Four buckets ready

Weighing the Lye

LYE!!!

One gallon bucket

All the stuff

Buckets with lye

Lye is working

Finished Lye part

Plastic floaters

Numbered bucket

Serious production

Rabbit ears

Another view of ears

Helper handle

Finished bucket

Finished without pla

Finished close up

Desalting

Ready to eat

Clsoe up ready to ea

All gone

The strainer bucket

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Ingredients

1. Green olives

2. Lye

3. Long rubber gloves, up to your elbow

4. Goggles

5. Scale

6. Large spoon

7. One gallon bucket, for measuring water, the red one is from Ace hardware.

8. Table salt (I buy 50 bags at Smart and Final) Of course for small batches, the salt from any grocery store will work. With or without iodine.

9. Strainer bucket - The strainer bucket is my idea. I purchase it from a restaurant supply house, attached a handle at the bottom to make it easier to control and attached two plexiglass ears to keep the olives from spilling out. The olives pour beautifully with the ears. You can drill holes all over a five gallon if you can't get a strainer like in the pics.

10. Plexiglass lid - Originally the recipe called for placing towels on the olives to keep the air from discoloring olives. I came up with the plastic lid, it should be 10 7/8 inches in diameter. The plastic lid is perfect.

11. 5 gallon bucket, I purchased all orange buckets from Home Depot. These are dedicated to olive making. Buckets are rinsed when finished and placed in 55 gallon plastic bags until next season.

12. Anyone who would like the printed recipe from the University of Davis can send me a fax number.

Directions

1. Caution the lye can cause severe burns if it touches your skin. Have vinegar at ready to neutralize the lye in case of accident. I feel it important to advise working with lye has its dangers. Use this recipe at your own risk. This recipe is from the University of Davis.

2. Note, it is very hard to buy lye as it was taken off the retail market as drug makers where using it to make drugs. You have to go to a chemical supplier, show your drivers license, and state the use of the lye.

3. Clean olives of stems and leaves and rinse

4. Set up area to weigh lye

5. Wear gloves and goggles

6. Using the one gallon bucket, pour two gallons of water in the five gallon bucket

7. Weigh out 5 1/2 ounces lye for two gallons of water

8. Do not allow water to touch lye while weighing

9. Exert extreme caution when weighing lye

10. Carefully pour lye in the five gallon bucket

11. Stir water and lye. The lye will heat up the water, it will be hot!!!!!!!

12. Allow to cool for 15-30 minutes.

13. Carefully pour 20 lbs of olives in water, stir.

14. Carefully place plastic lid on olives. This prevents air from discoloring olives.

15. Place lid on bucket.

16. Using gloves, remove an olive after two days and cut a wedge. The olive should be green all the way to the pit. If there is white, carefully pour off lye water, make a new solution and check again in 24 hours. If still not green, another 24 hours should get the lye to the pit.

17. Once you see green to the pit, pour olives with lye solution carefully off into the strainer bucket. Capture the used sly solution and neutralize with vinegar. Allow water to evaporate and put remaining residue in a covered bucket, there will be very little material that is harmless.

18. Rinse 5 gallon bucket, fill with water to the top, pour about 2 gallons over the olives in the strainer bucket. You will see more dark color coming off the olives.

19. With about three gallons of water still in the five gallon bucket, pour olives in the bucket. Stir, place plastic lid on olives, place lid on bucket.

20. Wait 8-10 hours, pour olives back into strainer bucket, again rinse with two gallons, place back in bucket with water.

21. Wait 24 hours. Repeat rinsing.

22. Wait 8-10, repeat rinsing.

23. Wait 8-10, repeat rinsing. At this point it is safe to place your bare hand in the water. To determine if the lye is totally removed, stir the olives with your hand, stirring all the way to bottom of the bucket. There should not be any kind of a slick feel, like soap. If any slickness, rinse again. Of course rinse your hand and arm after stirring and feeling the olives.

24. Once the olives are free of any soapy feel, rinse once more.

25. To store olives, place 3 cups of table salt per gallon of water and place two gallons of water in the bucket. Stir the water well to dissolve the salt. Put olives in the brine mixture, cover with plastic lid, and place the lid on the bucket. This ratio will make the olives very salty but allow them to stay preserved for a couple of months in cool weather. Best if kept under 70 degrees or less.

26. To eat the olives, place an amount in a bowl of fresh water. Allow to sit overnight. Pour off water and taste olive. If too salty, repeat with new water until they are to your liking.

27. Homemade olives are addictive, you can't eat one.

29. Black olives in the can are really green olives just like from this recipe. Commercial canners use their own process of oxidation to turn the olives black. Yep black olives are green olives in disguise. They have to turn them black as various colors of green olives in a can would not be appealing to consumers, so they turn them black and everything is pretty. How about that!

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Comments

pointsevenout 2 years ago said:
Where do you decant off all your lye? How hazardous is it to the plants or animals when you spill it on the ground or get into a stream or lake? Will it kill the good bacteria in a septic tank?

mystic_river1 2 years ago said:
I am sorry but this is not the place to put this type of 'recipe'. It is very dangerous caustic, can blind you! I think if you have to put a disclaimer on a recipe it should not be here at all.

modmom50 2 years ago said:
Thanks for a most interesting post. I have wondered what the process was for making those little tidbits of heaven. I will never actually make them but I enjoy knowing how they are made.

thegoldminer 2 years ago said:
It can be put here as it is a recipe. People have made olives like this for a very,very long time. The point is to show how it is done but advise it can be dangerous. I capture my lye and neutralize it with vinegar. It should not be poured down a drain.

frankieanne 2 years ago said:
This is very interesting. Can't believe someone gave it one fork. Thanks for the post.

thegoldminer 2 years ago said:
This is a learning site also. It is good to know how things are made. Glad you enjoyed.

zena824 2 years ago said:
JJ this sounds interesting for sure....Thanks for sharing this with us.....

gingerlea 2 years ago said:
A very eye opening education on making olives. Kinda scary now that I know what goes into making them. Of course one of my aunt's made laundry soap with lye and didn't eat up her clothes!!!! haha Want to thank you for teaching me something I never knew. Education at all levels is GREAT!!

chefmeow 2 years ago said:
Wow, this is a very good and very informing post. Thanks for the info. I love olives and always wondered what process was taken to get those delightful little things tasting like they do.

thegoldminer 2 years ago said:
I am glad most are learning from this post. Interesting that all those black olives in cans are just green olives like in my pics. Who would have known? JJ I make it sound serious and it is somewhat but if you follow instructions and be careful you too can have home made olives.

liezel 2 years ago said:
Now I know why I don't eat olives! But very interesting to know how it's made. Keep on posting educational things like this. Good to know what is in your food and what is being used to complete some processes. Most of the time we eat stuff and don't read the labels and don't know what is actually inside. Keep it up!!!!

erisgrrrl 1 year, 12 months ago said:
This was totally fascinating. It's like a home grown version of "Good Eats" meets "Dirty Jobs"!!

I'm curious as to the reason behind the "production levels" - do you sell these?

thegoldminer 1 year, 12 months ago said:
That is just a little humor because I made so many. And yes, people want to buy them as they taste sooooooooooooooo good :-)

annieamie 1 year, 9 months ago said:
I always wondered how to cure an olive. Talk about an intense recipe! You're just too wonderful for taking the time to write all of this out for us. Thank you so very much. This is a very informative piece of work!

cheryilyn 1 year, 9 months ago said:
Interesting and great pictures too. thanks for the lesson.

greekgirrrl 1 year, 8 months ago said:
Excellent post

mintymommybee 1 year, 3 months ago said:
Mmm, I love Graber Olives, they are like no othes I have ever tasted and are simply addictive but I can no longer find them here as the old woman who sold them passed on and ... well, I'm not going to be making these for another 15 years I am sure, as with these beautiful children hanging on my apron strings and legs and all ... but now I am really going to have to search and order some Grabers by mail!

notyourmomma 3 months, 2 weeks ago said:
Amazing post. Wow. Great photos as always.

huxter 3 months, 1 week ago said:
Wonderful and informative post with the photos so even a dolt like me could follow . I could even use the lye afterwards to clean off furniture in my furniture restoration business !!! No kidding ,thats what I use it for .

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