馃攳
How Olive Oil Is Farmed and Processed at the Country's Biggest Producer 鈥斅燞ow to Make It - YouTube
Channel: Eater
[0]
- We are here in California Olive Ranch,
[2]
the biggest producer of
olive oil in the country.
[5]
We're gonna find out how
they are mainstreaming
[8]
the production of olive oil,
to make it more consistent,
[11]
and widely available for everyday use.
[15]
So how does California olive farming
[17]
differ from Italy, Spain?
[20]
- Spain produces roughly
half the world's olive oil.
[22]
Most of Spain, Italy,
those kind of markets,
[25]
are still actually either hand-harvested,
[27]
or shaken on to the ground
and harvested that way.
[30]
We're all about catching the
fruit before it hits the dirt,
[32]
processing it as fast as
we can get it to the mill,
[35]
and also harvesting it at the right time.
[37]
- How do you know when
they're ready to be harvested?
[41]
- Around September we start
a fruit-sampling program,
[43]
and we will send a team
out weekly into the fields,
[46]
and they'll pull samples
from different blocks,
[49]
and they'll start tracking the maturity.
[51]
We track the maturity by two things.
[53]
One is color, and also
the second is wet fat.
[56]
So we will test an olive
[57]
and test how much fat is
actually in the olive.
[59]
If you were to grab an
olive today and squeeze it,
[62]
you can see the juice in it
[63]
and some of the oil that comes out.
[65]
- [Katie] Oh my gosh!
[66]
- [Matt] You'll see some
with different colors.
[68]
The green will be a little bit harder
[70]
and not have quite as much oil.
[71]
As maturity comes, the
olive will turn purple.
[73]
- I've never had an olive
that's not been brined.
[76]
- [Matt] So try it.
- And I love olives,
[78]
mainly for their salty briny factor.
[81]
I gotta do it
[82]
Oh my gosh! (Matt laughing)
[84]
Oh my gosh! It's so bitter!
[85]
- [Matt] I warned ya.
[86]
- [Katie] So, this is a harvester.
[88]
- [Matt] It's designed to pick olives.
[90]
(harvester rumbling)
[92]
- This is unbelievable.
[95]
This is like, I couldn't have pictured
[97]
what this would entail.
[104]
Where are these olives headed?
[105]
- [Matt] This is actually on
its way to the mill right now.
[110]
- What are we going to be
doing here at the mill?
[111]
- We're actually gonna
follow the entire process,
[113]
from fruit receipt, all
the way through extraction.
[115]
This machine here can run
[117]
anywhere between 60-100
tons of material every hour.
[121]
We're hand-sorting any material
[123]
that's got a greater bulk
density than the olive
[126]
that could have possibly made it through.
[133]
The fruit that we just
watched go up the conveyor
[135]
is coming into this hopper.
[137]
This is the mill.
[139]
Right here we're feeding the fruit in,
[141]
and that's breaking up the
entire olive, pit, everything.
[145]
- Whoa! It just hits you in the face.
[147]
- Yes.
- Olive oil.
[148]
- This is mechanical agitation.
[150]
When this process is
working very very well,
[153]
that's where you're going to
start see the oil separation.
[156]
If you put your hand on here, you can feel
[158]
we're operating at very
very very low temperatures.
[161]
- So you're cold-pressing.
[162]
- This is cold-pressing.
[164]
- What are some of the
other methods of extraction?
[167]
- You have chemical extraction,
[169]
which you typically don't see in most --
[171]
- You don't want to do that.
[172]
- You don't want to do that.
[173]
You can't make extra virgin olive oil.
[175]
Other types, you would
actually, these jackets would be
[177]
as hot as 100-120 degrees Celsius.
[181]
From here, we're gonna go down
[183]
and we'll take a look at the decanter.
[185]
As you can see, here's where the first
[188]
extraction point of the oil is.
[190]
If you notice, it looks
a little bit different
[192]
than what you get in your bottle.
[194]
- [Katie] Yes.
[194]
- Much more cloudy, it's not as clean.
[197]
Right here, all we're
trying to do is get the oil,
[200]
and we want a little bit of the water
[201]
so that we know we're extracting
as much oil as we can.
[205]
- What do you do with all the pomace?
[208]
- Right now, all of our pomace,
[210]
it gets taken to a feed
company, it's solar dried,
[213]
and it gets blended in as
a cattle-feed supplement.
[216]
These are the high-speed separators.
[218]
And what these guys are
doing is they're separating
[220]
the suspended solids and
some of the moisture.
[223]
Essentially what we're doing
is we're spinning these
[225]
at twice the speed as the decanter.
[228]
And as you can see, the
oil here is much more clear
[231]
than the oil that we had there.
[235]
This oil in particular is Arbequina.
[237]
First thing that we're gonna do
[238]
is we're gonna cover the cup,
[240]
and we want to bring
the oil to temperature.
[243]
- It smells green, if that makes sense.
[246]
- No, that is actually a descriptor.
[248]
- Um, oh. Oh.
[249]
- Yeah, see, so you're already a pro.
[253]
And then go ahead and aspirate that.
[255]
(sucking)
[257]
Those polyphenols not only help with
[258]
a lot of the health
attributes of olive oil,
[261]
but it also helps with storage.
[263]
So the higher the polyphenol count,
[265]
the more shelf-stable
that oil will actually be
[266]
throughout the life.
[268]
- Oh my gosh.
[271]
This is the largest tank I have ever seen.
[274]
- This is actually the
largest bulk storage facility
[277]
for olive oil in the world.
[279]
- I really had no idea
[281]
how huge of a process it really is,
[286]
extracting oil from olives.
[288]
I was picturing a little
crushing, a little straining,
[291]
you know, into bottles, done.
[294]
- No.
[295]
In here, we've got two bottling lines.
[296]
- Can we talk a little bit
about olive oil grading.
[299]
You're making extra virgin
cold-pressed olive oil here.
[303]
What's the difference between that
[304]
and a bottle that you see
that just says "olive oil"?
[307]
- We've got three different types of oil.
[310]
Extra virgin being the
premium quality olive oil,
[313]
then you've got virgin, which
is the next lowest grade,
[316]
then you've got lampante, or crude,
[318]
and you've also got anything
[319]
that's just labeled as olive oil.
[321]
If you see that on the
restaurant menu, or on a bottle,
[323]
you really don't have security
of what is in that bottle.
[327]
- That is, wow. That is a
valuable piece of information.
[332]
- Absolutely.
[333]
- This is something that
we should talk about.
[336]
Most people, I think, think that olive oil
[339]
is this indefinite, sitting
on a shelf situation.
[343]
But it's highly perishable.
[345]
- Absolutely.
[345]
- You should be looking for --
- Oh, absolutely.
[347]
- An expiration date. A harvest date.
[349]
That's a good sign of freshness?
[352]
- Absolutely. Absolutely.
[354]
This is one of the key portions
[356]
of ensuring that you're
getting what you're paying for.
[360]
- Right.
[361]
- Anybody can slap a pretty
front label on a bottle.
[363]
- Yeah.
[363]
- But luckily, in California,
[365]
all of us are under the same regulations
[367]
and ensure that we're being
transparent to our customers.
[369]
- Is there a reason for the green bottle?
[371]
- Absolutely.
[373]
The darker the bottle, typically,
[375]
the better UV resistance
it's going to have.
[377]
- So you don't want to take your olive oil
[381]
that you purchased, and pour it into
[382]
a cute little clear carafe.
[384]
- Absolutely not.
[385]
- Sitting on your counter.
- Absolutely.
[386]
- It's in that bottle for a reason.
[388]
- Absolutely.
- Keep it in that bottle.
[390]
- Yes.
[391]
Keep it away from light,
[392]
in a pantry cupboard, kitchen cupboard.
[393]
You can keep it ... I know
temperatures fluctuate at home,
[397]
but somewhere around that 70 degree mark.
[400]
Keep it out of direct light.
[402]
Don't keep it next to the stove.
[404]
And as good-looking as this bottle is,
[405]
don't put it in the window sill.
[406]
- I have to find another
spot for my olive oil.
[409]
It's been a great day.
[410]
Thank you so much for having me
[412]
and taking me through your facility.
[413]
I learned a tremendous amount.
[416]
It's been great.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage