Food I'm Eating: Sparkling Olives, Anyone? (March 30, 2013)

About a week ago I bottled up the first of two batches of olives I've been making. These are a small variety from a tree that grows in our garden. The second batch is still in the brine stage. They are larger olives from a neighbor's tree that take longer to lose their bitterness. I was looking at the bottled olives yesterday and noticed that the metal lids of the mason jars I used looked somewhat puffy. Suspicious, I opened one and found a fairly vigorous fermentation going on.

Carbonated olives? A bit strange, but the bubbles dissipated overnight (I left the jars open). The olives do have a slight prickle, however. Not unpleasant and the flavor otherwise is great, but I wonder what happened? I did NOT refrigerate the jars after closing them. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps the brine they are packed in was too weak? I decided to add a teaspoon of wine vinegar and a teaspoon of salt to each of the jars and I put them in the refrigerator this time. I hope the fermentation stops. I need an olive guru to tell me what's going on....

In the meantime, I keep eating them.

Food I'm Eating: Olives 2013--First Batch Finished (March 22, 2013)

I bottled our first batch of 2013 olives the day before yesterday. These are made from our own tree--smaller than those from our neighbor's tree. The larger olives are still a little bitter, so I changed the brine they're in and will give them another week or so. I brined these smaller ones on February 10, so they took about five weeks to make, which seems typical for the smaller variety. I bottled up about six pints. The lemons, wine vinegar, garlic, and herbs I added this year give them quite a nice flavor.

Food I'm Eating: Olives 2013 (March 5, 2013)

The olives are coming along nicely. They've been in brine for going on a month now. I started them on February 10. Two years ago when I made olives I simply brined them. This year, following a recipe my neighbor used, I left them in brine for the first three weeks, but a few days ago I drained them and put them in containers with new brine, substituting a quarter cup of red wine vinegar for some of the water and added lemons, bay leaves, and a mix of herbs, including rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and savory--in a typical herbs de Provence sort of blend. The rosemary is from the garden. The smaller olives (I used two varieties, one from our own tree, one from a neighbor's tree) are nearly ready. In fact, I may transfer them back to plain brine sooner rather than later so they don't take on too much of the vinegar character. The larger ones are still somewhat bitter and will require another week or so. The brining seems to take about five to six weeks. So far, they look (and taste) very promising. To see the original post on this blog about this year's olives or about making olives in past years, search on "olives" in the search box.

Food I'm Eating: Olives (2013)

I picked olives from our tree the day before yesterday, hoping to repeat the success I had two years ago making olives for the first time. Last year most olives trees in the area produced virtually no fruit. Olives seem to alternate heavy crops and it rained heavily during flowering last year as well. Picking now was a bit late. The fruit appears more than optimally ripe (a lot has fallen and what was left on the tree was beginning to shrivel a little). On the upside, the olives are somewhat bigger than two years ago, when I picked in mid-January. My neighbor's tree is a much better variety, with bigger, meatier fruits. They allowed me to take what was left on their tree as well.

So, I have about eight quarts or so of two varieties (both unknown) now soaking in brine, using the same solution I used two years ago (a quarter cup of kosher salt to one quart of water). I slit the olives with a knife before brining them, as the recipes instruct. The break in the skin allows the salt to soak in and the bitter components in the olives to leach out. We'll see how it goes.... Meanwhile, my hard cider is still bubbling away on day 11 of fermentation. Testing the liquid, it tastes of alcohol, but is still slightly sweet. I'm guessing it will take another five to six days or so for the fermentation to go to completion. Then I'll need to rack the cider a couple of times to clear it of solids and then bottle it, dosing it with a touch of sugar before putting the caps on, which will cause a secondary fermentation in the bottle, adding that touch of carbonation that makes a good cider refreshing--that's the theory anyway. Cider is a new realm of exploration for me.