If you have used a brine cure, you may want to leave the olives in fresh water for a day or so before final bottling - being sure to change the water every day.
If you want them to darken up - leave out of brine/ water for 24 hours before bottling.
Sterilize the bottles before using. Pack the drained ovives into the jars leaving a small gap at the top.
Make up the bottling brine using 900g water : 60g salt : 55g white wine vinegar.
I boil the water, dissolve the salt, add the vinegar, and pour over the olives while still hot if you want to have them seal (using metal lids for the jars). This probably makes the vinegar a bit less potent.
If they do seal, they keep very well out of the fridge for a couple of years. The longer they are in the bottle, the more they continue to cure. They get soft and unappealing after a few years.
Because the curing is a fermentation process you do not want to put the olives in too cold a place, like in the fridge. Normal room temperature is fine.
We recommend that you do not change the brine too often, you do not want to
create too much salt waste and it also affects the flavour of the end
product. If you change the brine the process will be faster but the
brine you pour off contains fermenting substances that you want the
olives to absorb since they add flavours and you will lose those in
the process. But experiment - make a few smaller containers and you
can leave some untouched whilst you speed up the fermentation in some
by changing the brine.
Don't panic when
... your beautiful black Kalamatas lose their colour in the brine and
become all shades of brown, maroon, beige... this is natural. If you
want your olives darker again you can just expose them to air for up
to 24 hours before bottling them. Put the olives in a bottle and wait
some hours before pouring the brine.
... there is a white film or mould on the surface of your brine. It is
natural. You can remove it or leave it – it is part of the
fermentation process and should smell of that as well.
... when you tasted so many olives and its been so many
weeks – and they are still bitter. Hang in there. Change the
brine and we promise, it will de-bitter sooner or later. The
time it takes depends on the size and ripeness of the olive,
and of course your personal preference.
To Cut ... or Not to Cut ...
Many people cut or prick their olives before curing. This
is to make the bitter oleuropein leak out easier.
We prefer not to do this, and it is not only because it is
A LOT OF WORK...
It is our experience that although the cut may serve well to extract
the bitterness, it leaves the olive flesh around the cut exposed. It
will naturally be able to absorb more liquid (water and later often
vinegar used for preservation). Our cut olives have more quickly
become soft and kept the flavours for shorter period of time than
uncut olives. But again – it is a tradeoff. Maybe if you want your
olives debittered quickly and intend to eat them very fast, this is a
method that works well for you. This is often the case in home
pickling and you will find that many of our recipes cure the olives
rather fast. In the end it is up to you, dear Kalamata lover, - to cut
or not to cut - that is the question...