Kalamata Olives - Brine Cure
Check over the olives and throw away any bruised or rotten ones. (It
only needs one needs one bruised olive in the storage jar to bring
disaster). Start the curing process on the same day as you have
picked the olives.
My inexperience means I cannot tell what is a bad bruise. Just a soft
spot? To deal with this I graded the olives (>5kg from Paul's tree in
early May, 2014) and cured them in 2 batches. The smaller batch for
any doubtful ones. When bottling and storing I expect to be able to
grade again - like with like as they are changing colour at quite
different rates during the curing process. Brine made from 3.6L of
water and 400g salt was sufficient for the 5.5kg of olives I had.
The Fermented Brine Cure
from "Six ways to Cure an Olive"
Curing Method
- Make a brine with 4Tablespoons of pickling salt to 1200ml of water. Leave to cool if made by boiling in a pan. (Not sure if boiling is necessary.)
- With a sharp knife slash each olive deeply one one side.
- Place the olives in a large glazed stoneware, earthenware, glass or porcelain container. (what about plastic? definately not metal.)
- Cover the olives completely with the brine. Weight them down with a piece of scoured wood, or a plastic bag filled with water, making sure they are all completely submerged.
- Store in a cool place
- Change the brine solution once a week for three weeks
- If a pinky-white scum forms on the surface during that time, rejoice. A lactic acid fermentation is taking place - harmless and part of the process. Disregard it until it is time to change the brine. Then rinse the olives with fresh water before covering them with the new brine. The scum will form again until the cure is done.
- At the end of the three weeks taste one of the largest olives. It should be just slightly bitter for the best effect. If not ready cover with brine again for another week.
- When ready, pour off the brine and rinse the olives, ready for storage.
I ended up using a 10% brine solution, and only changing it once every 3 weeks or so as the process was happening in plastic tubs in our rather cool Canberra laundry so was very slow. After 2 to 3 months I changed to fresh water and started to bottle the olives.
Storage Marinade
This is the first one I tried. It is a bit too strongly vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon pickling salt
- 2 cups water
- 1.5 cups white wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 3 wedges lemon
- 2 cloves garlic
Next variant:
1 l water : 66 g salt : 70 ml vinegar.
500 ml water : 33 g salt : 30 ml vinegar.
4.5 l water : 300 g salt : 250 ml brown grape vinegar.
Add rosemary and chillies.
Garlic and Lemon and oregano
Storage Method
- Cover the olives with the marinade
- Float a layer of olive oil on the surface to seal it
- Store in the fridge and use olives as needed.
Variations
I swapped to using plastic buckets and 10% brine solution for the second week of curing. 10% brine is 100g salt to 900ml of water, which slightly more salt to water than the 4T to 1200ml of water of the above. This was as a result of reading the web document http://www.portion36.co.za/Portion%2036%20Kalamata%20Guide%20reduced%20size.pdf
TEMPERATURE:
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.
TIPS:
Put your olives in orange net bags, they come
in rolls that you can buy at any shop that sells plastic
goods like Plastic Warehouse for instance. Then the
olives are easy to handle and submerge in the brine.
Put a lid on your container to keep dust out. Do
NOT seal the container - gas is produced during the
fermentation. We believe that this curing method is
both efficient and make flavourful olives.
Curing Challenges
Because the olives are cured in a strong salt solution, it can be
difficult to taste the flavours and how debittered the olive is. One
has to allow for some saltiness when tasting. When the olives are
bottled later the salt is extracted to a large extent. (You can also
leave them in fresh water overnight before bottling to extract some of
the salt.)
From there on you need not do much but wait – unless you are
impatient. Depending on volume, if you do nothing, this process can
take 12 months. But you can also change the brine after a few weeks to
speed up the process. You just pour off the brine and make a new
identical solution to replace it.
We recommend that you do not do this 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 our 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...
BOTTLING Kalamata Olives
Finally, the day comes and once you decide your Kalamatas have
de-bittered it is time to bottle them and this is now the fun part and
where you can create your own, unique table olives. There are a
thousand ways, but just a few basics. First of all, we remove the
olives from the strong salt brine and leave them in fresh water
overnight. This especially applies when you have cured in a 10% salt
brine as we do. The next day we take the olives out and but them in
bottles that have been sterilized.
BRINE for BOTTLing
TIP:
You can sterilize your bottles in the dishwasher – or in the microwave.
Then you need to make a brine and the question is what to bottle in – water, salt, vinegar, oil... We bottle our olives in weak salt brine, around 3%. You will see in the recipes that there are many other combinations.
30 g salt to 970 g water for example if you want a 3% salt solution.
We do not use vinegar or any other preservatives. An
olive that is fully fermented has a natural preservative -
lactic acid - and does not really need any other preservative.
Challenge:
This method makes a rather fresh product
and you need to think for how long you want to be able
to keep your olives. Theoretically olives can be kept for
up to 4 years. We think that our Kalamatas should be
consumed between the harvests.
It is our experience that our olives will keep for a year
in the fridge unopened in the weak salt brine, but they
lose some of their flavour. If bottled in vinegar on the
other hand, the olives will with time absorb more and
more of the vinegar and we find that they can become
very acidic and taste more vinegar than olive. If you
want to bottle with vinegar you can choose a lighter or
heavier solution - anything up to 50% can be used.
With a strong vinegar the olives clearly will preserve
longer but the trade off is a more acidic olive.
Recipes
Brown Grape Vinegar Olives
- 5 kg Kalamata olives
-
Put in cold water and change water every day for 3 weeks. Make sure olives are
submerged.
-
Make a salt brine - determine strength by putting an egg in the water and
add salt until the egg floats (which is about 10 percent).
-
Leave olives in this salt brine for 1 week.
-
Take olives out and rinse in cold water.
-
Prepare a brine of : 4,5 l water, 300 g salt, 250 ml brown grape vinegar.
-
Put olives in glas jars (leave olives exposed to air for a few hours if you want them to go darker.)
-
Add garlic, chillies and herbs of choice.
-
Pour the brine over the olives until they are covered.
-
Pour some olive oil on top to cover.
-
Seal with tight lid and keep in a cool place.
-
Ready to eat after a few weeks!
Mustard Kalamatas
-
11 kg Kalamata olives
-
Put olives in buckets of water and change every day for 21 days.
-
Make a 10% salt brine and put the olives in the salt solution for 2-3 days.
-
Make sure the olives are submerged. Taste the olives often, do not hesitate
if you want to add more salt.
-
Prepare a brine of 1,5 liter water + 1,5 liter naturally
fermented 5% grape vinegar.
-
Add: 1 tsp Prepared Pommery, Dijon or Wholegrain Mustard1 tsp ground
black pepper (from mill) plus 200 – 300 ml Brown Sugar
-
Bring to a boil and let cool, taste and add sugar to your taste.
-
Sterilise glass jars in dishwasher and pack the olives in the jars.
-
Cover with the hot liquid, seal with olive oil.
-
Seal lids tightly.
-
Keep in cool, dark place for 5 weeks.
-
Then and onward – READY TO EAT!
No effort olives
-
Rinse the Kalamata Olives in clean cold water.
-
Sit in front of the TV and make a cut in each olive.
-
Put the cut olives in a bucket and pour water over and cover with a lid.
-
Change the water once a day for a month.
-
Make a brine of 4 L water, 1,5 cup fine salt, 4 cups vinegar and pour over
the olives.
-
Leave for a week in the bucket and taste until you like the taste of your
olives. It should take between 4 and 10 days.
-
When you decide your olives are perfect to your taste, pour the brine off
and put the olives in glass bottles.
-
Flavour your olives with herbs or spices that you like such as
chillies, basil, rosemary, black pepper corns, thyme, garlic and red wine.
Combinations work well too.
Rosemary and Lemon Kalamatas
-
Rinse the Kalamatas olives in clean, cold water.
-
Put them in buckets.
-
Make a brine of 10 percent salt - 100 g salt to 900 g water.
-
Pour the brine over the olives and make sure they are submerged.
-
Put a lid on but not airtight -
-
Leave in brine for 6 weeks. Change the brine for a new 10 percent salt
solution.
-
Leave for another 6 weeks.
-
Taste the olives and if you think they are still bitter, change the brine
again and leave until you are happy.
-
When the Kalamatas are to your taste, take them out and put them in
sterilised glass bottles.
-
Add fresh rosemary and lemon slices to the bottle.
-
Make a new brine, 8 percent salt and pour over the olives.
-
Seal with some olive oil and tighten the lids.
-
Keep in a cool place.
Kalamatas in Rosemary and Vinegar
-
Soak the olives in water for 2 weeks. Change the water every day.
-
Make a 5 percent salt brine and put the olives in the brine for 4 weeks.
-
Remember to taste the olives before you take them out -
you decide when they are perfect. If after 4 weeks they are still bitter,
leave them longer or even replace the brine with new brine.
-
When the olives are ready, make a brine for the bottling: 1 l vinegar of
choice, 4 l water and 200 g salt.
-
Put the olives in bottles, add rosemary twigs and pour the brine over
the olives.
-
Leave for 4 weeks.
Kalamatas a la die burger
-
Inspect your olives and ensure they are ripe but not soft.
-
Put olives in orange bags and place in buckets. Cover with fresh water -
change the water every day.
-
Make a brine 20 percent salt and submerge the olives in the salt brine.
-
Put in a cool place.
-
Change the brine every week for four weeks. Taste the olives to see that
they are not too bitter.
-
Sterilise bottles (can be done in dishwasher or microwave). Rinse the ol
ves and put in the bottles. Flavour the olives - herbs, chillies, garlic - to
your taste.
-
Mix 10 l water and add 1 cup salt to a solution.
-
Make a brine from 2/3 of the salt solution plus 1/3 good quality brown
vinegar
. (if you prefer more acidy brine make it half salt solution and half
vinegar).
-
Bring to a boil and pour over olives until covered.
-
Pour olive oil on top to seal and close lids tightly.
Portion 36 Olive Orchard’s natural Kalamatas
Fully ripe olives of the same size in cold water overnight.
-
Cure in 10 percent salt solution in plastic drums. Change the brine every 10-14
days.
-
After 6 weeks, start tasting the olives. Stop the curing when de-bittered to taste.
-
Rinse the olives in fresh water, then put them in sterilised jars and leave the
olives standing for a few hours to darken.
-
Fill the jars with clean water and put a lid on tightly.
-
These natural olives without added perservatives and with reduced lactic acid
should be treated as fresh products. Once the bottle has been opened it needs to be kept in the fridge, and be eaten in a week. But isn’t that the whole idea with Kalamata olives anyway...?