California Olive Oil News^©
A Publication of The Olive Oil Source  

Volume 9 Issue 10/11

November/December 2006

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Equipment Issue

This is the time of year that all the olive mills which have been ordered 1 or 2 years previously finally make it from the factory to their new homes. It is always a race to get equipment installed in the narrow window between the time approvals and permissions are given at the city, county and state levels and buildings are built but before the olives are ready to pick.

California's Largest Olive Oil Decanter Installed

A whopper of an olive oil processing plant has been installed at  Corto Olive in Lodi, California. The first phase of the plant is now processing 6 to 9 tons of olives an hour through a single Pieralisi SPI 444 centrifugal decanter. Corto Olive also has a Pieralisi Fattoria system installed last year as a trial for the larger mill  - primarily processing Tuscan variety olives.

Like California Olive Ranch in Oroville, Corto Olive is processing their own olives which come from their several hundred acres of Arbequina and Arbosana variety trees which are now  2-3 years old. The dwarf variety trees are grown in rows and  harvested with over the row machinery.

Interior portion showing malaxation tanks and decanter

The installation presented several challenges.  The washer and deleafer are also some of the biggest units ever installed in California. Two dual grind mills reduce the olives into paste. There are  3 vertically stacked horizontal malaxation tanks with a capacity of 25,000 lbs which knead the paste to break the emulsion and release the oil. 

The SPI 444 horizontal Decanter separates the paste into olive oil and a watery waste containing the flesh, skin and pit fragments at a throughput of  up to 9 tons per hour. The river of  oil coming out, up to 6 gallons a minute,  is sent to a pair of vertical separators.

Waste paste or pomace must be disposed of at a rate of tons per hour. Tractor pulled hoppers with cultivators attached plow the olive waste back into the rows between the olive trees at the same rate the trees are picked.

With trucks coming in with olives at a continuous rate, Corto Olive  wanted close monitoring of throughput.  Special monitoring equipment to track flow through each step of the olive processing was installed. Flow meters had to deal with the pulsatile action of the piston pumps necessary for the high volume of paste being transferred to each piece of equipment. For aesthetics, many of the outside panels on the equipment were installed with a custom stainless finish.  

The Pieralisi equipment was purchased through the American factory representative, Lisa Deane of the Olive Oil Source and installed by Peter Webster and Mike Matthews and their team at Contec.

Frantoio Mill and Restaurant adds new Equipment

Across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco in Mill Valley, California, Roberto Zecca's Italian restaurant "Frantoio" has upgraded it's namesake equipment. The only restaurant in the U.S. with an in house state of the art olive oil production facility, diners can watch huge granite wheels grind olives to paste while enjoying traditional Italian specialties prepared by chef Duilio Valenti. 

 Formerly the paste was pressed using the rustic and traditional fiber mats in a hydraulic press. The oil was excellent but the hydraulic press has been replaced by a much tidier horizontal decanter centrifuge. The Frantoio milling operation specializes in custom processing of small lots of olives from the many wineries and groves in the Sonoma and Napa area. Growers appreciated the taste given to the oil by the traditional granite wheels but the mats on the press retain olive oil from the previous batch of paste which frustrated efforts to separate the taste and character of each small batch. The mats also presented a large area for oxidation and had to be specially cleaned and stored in refrigerated lockers each night.

Contec installation lead Mike Matthews shows Roberto first oil

The new setup simplifies clean up and  gives more space for special dining parties right in the milling room.  The first batch of olives run through the mill was producing wonderful oil and good yields which pleased expert taster and owner Roberto Zecca. The excellent green and peppery first oil was toasted around a special lunch prepared by Chef Duilio and staff. The Pieralisi equipment was purchased through The Olive Oil Source and installed by Contec.

Chinese Olive Orchards

Olive Connexions Int’l Pte. Ltd. (OCI) is a privately held olive oil-centered agricultural, trading and training enterprise in China which  currently claim to have 10,000 trees in Kunming, Yunnan. According to the businesses' website, "There is a vast business potential for olive oil and its products in China; local consumers, especially in the five Economic Zones and Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, are starting to switch to olive oil. Kunming, now an international expatriate hub, and the NW regions which have traditionally purchased olive oil from Turkey, are other local market possibilities."

see:  Connexions

Email:	info@oliveconnexions.com
Hoi:	(86) 13888-176-364
Yap:	(65) 9139-4625

Dear Jon Note; A Crusty Tale
by John Deane

Jon writes: I'm trying to find a recipe for pie crust made with olive oil instead of butter / vegetable shortening. My experiments so far have been disappointing. Do you have any ideas?

Dear Jon: This relationship really isn't going to work out. You bring up a very complex and difficult subject which gets into the current debate over saturated fats, the proper use of animal and vegetable lard, etc. Lets begin with a bit of history. The first doughs which were eaten were unleavened flatbreads which are still extant as Indian roti, Greek pita, etc. Fermented dough was used to make a leavened bread by 4000 BC. Kneading caused springy gluten molecules to join up making a tough and elastic dough which would rise with the gas caused by fermenting.

But what if you do not want a tough dough which can rise, but a thin crust which is flaky; in other words a pastry. Adding fat will weaken gluten molecules by preventing them from bonding to each other, so adding fats to a dough will "shorten" it, making the final product more tender and flaky.

In crumbly pastries such as pie, cookies, pâté brisée , etc.,  the food comes apart in small irregular particles. Crusts which have a crumbly character instead of a flaky one, such as graham cracker and shortbread are made with melted butter or a liquid fat such as a vegetable oil. The liquid fat coats the grains of starch and further weaken the dough, creating crumbs. Olive oil would work fine in this kind of crust.

In flaky pastries such as the typical American pie crust, a bite should produce small, irregular thin flakes. A solid fat separates flattened layers of dough so that they cook into separate layers of pastry. One of the keys to making crust is to keep the fat solid by chilling it and minimizing over handling with warm hands. In order to keep the layers of fat and dough separate, the fat must be solid. That is why olive oil will not work. You might get away with margarine mixed 50-50 with olive oil if the mixing bowl and all ingredients are very cold to keep the fat mixture solid.

The ultimate laminated pastry is puff pastry, phyllo or strudel or laminated breads such as Danish and croissants where a bite produces very thin layers which are crispy or have the soft chewiness of bread. Again, the fat must be kept solid, the dough chilled.

Traditionally, before we worried about cholesterol, the better pie crusts used the fats which were hard at room temperature such as beef fat. These fats are solid because they are saturated with hydrogen. Vegetable oils are liquid because they contain double bonds. In an industrial process these oils can be subjected to heat, pressure and hydrogen to break these bonds creating a hydrogen saturated vegetable fat (hydrogenated). This otherwise liquid fat is now solid at room temperature and is called margarine or vegetable lard and can be used to make pie crust. You could take olive oil and hydrogenate it to a vegetable lard and use it to make a great pie. The trouble is that saturated fats are suspect health-wise.

The other problem with liquid oils is that a pasty made with them will "leak" oil out of the packaging. This is why they have poor shelf life, must have more expensive packaging and are not favored by the big food companies.

An excellent resource for food chemistry questions: "On Food and Cooking - the Science and Lore of the Kitchen" - Harold McGee

Avocado oil - Another California "Boutique oil"

Many Southern California olive growers have asked about avocado oil as their climate often supports both crops.

Recently the Olive Oil Source helped install a state of the art Pieralisi avocado processing plant in Southern California at Cid and Corinne da Silva's Avocado Grove in Valley Center. Corinne is a former director of an internet marketing firm and Cid a former software architect. The couple purchased their 40 acre avocado grove with the idea of developing some new markets for an old crop.

Avocados grow slowly on the tree and begin to ripen when picked. They are often grown on steep slopes and fruit which are the right size are laboriously chosen and hand picked via ladders.

An olive oil processing plant can be used to make avocado oil with some modification. The ripe fruit is fed into a machine which removes the skin and pits. The fruit pulp goes through a mill and subsequently looks like guacamole for the rest of its processing.

The malaxation is longer, requiring up to several hours to release the fine emulsion of oil. Avocado paste is fed to the

 horizontal centrifugal decanter  where the oil is separated and the guacamole is returned to the orchard. Yield is similar to olives.

Avocado oil has some unique qualities and fills a niche on the cooking oil shelf. It has a high smoke point so makes a good spray on cooking oil. Other characteristics make it attractive to the cosmetics industry.
 

Avocado Oil coming to the top in the Malaxation Tank

 The installation team took months to figure out the last details and modifications including a custom touch screen control panel. The mill was commissioned in September and produced a beautiful dark green oil with a nutty avocado flavor. Unlike most other flavorless avocado oils on the market, the da Silvas' avocado oil is not refined. As a test, the da Silva's recently processed lemon and orange during the last two Avocado runs for 2006. The result was a luscious, emerald green, aromatic oil of: Orange/Avocado and Lemon/Avocado. The blended oils are stunning on salads, delicious in baked goods and amazing as a marinade on fish and chicken.
 

Cid with the Pieralisi Decanter Centrifuge

Specialty food stores will soon be selling the oil in limited quantities under the brand of: Bella Vado. The plan is for the press to be also used for olives and other oils in the future.

For information, you can e-mail info@bellavado.com or ring 1-888-299-6457 (OILS).

9th Annual Cañada College Arts & Olive Festival

Festival spirits were dampened a bit by drizzling weather, although vendors reported good sales to customers from the Silicon Valley area who come back every year to restock. 

The college south of San Francisco was built on an old olive orchard. The gnarled trees on the campus are kept well pruned but there are hundreds of others on the surrounding hills which have reverted to their bushy nature.

Don Landis  gave a demonstration of olive brining and passed out olive samples. Carol Firenze gave a review of her book, The Passionate Olive- 101 Things to Do with Olive Oil