Earlier this week Luke and Bridgette went to the mill with the olives that we picked last weekend.  We didn't get to go because I had to work and they usually go at night (which is when I work).  So, I made arrangements to go help them pick olives today instead and then go to the mill with them afterwards.

Apparently in previous years they have gone to a more traditional mill, which has its pluses and minuses... on the plus side it is a nice atmosphere and they get to socialize with the other olive growers.  They have a big fire where you can grill sausages or steaks and bruschetta (which is slices of bread toasted on the wood grill and then drizzled with the new olive oil coming off of the press.) 

On the downside they usually have 3-5 hour wait times and it sometimes isn't as hygienic as the newer mills and the bottling process can be less than straightforward.

So, they tried a new mill this year, one that was a bit farther away than their normal one... about 20km I believe.



Overall it was a VERY efficient operation.  They were masters a getting people through the process in a timely manner.  While the mill didn't have any of the old world charm I can see that it had it's place... when you just want to get your olives processed and not fart around in a place for 5 hours.  We were in and out of there within one hour

The process at the new mill goes like this:

1. The truck is weighed with all the olives in it.  It is then re-weighed after taking all of the olives out, which gives you the weight of the olives.  Nice, easy efficient.  Apparently the old mills make you weigh each crate.



2.  The olives are then dumped into a bit where they go into an auger that puts them into the De-Leafer.  I say De-Leafer, but it's more like a Less-Leafer as quite a few still remain with the olives... I think it's just to take out the more annoying large ones.



You can see the different colors of the olives as we go through the crates.

If you look behind

there is a big brown pile back there.  Despite what it looks like, that is the tailings - the extra pulp that's left over after the olive oil gets extracted.



Still more to go...



Hey, I wonder if I can get an advertising stipend from Norco Auto body.  I'm guessing probably not.



There's the big brown pile in all its glory.



Someone needs to drag me away from the olives...



Ok, so here's the end of the Less-Leafer.  Leaves on the bottom, olives in the auger which is that grey cylinder pointing up towards the top left of the picture.  From here it goes into the Washer.



I know... the next question is... what does the Washer do?  It's really something I fretted about for a while also, but basically, it... uhh... washes.  The olives.  Yeah I know... big surprise ending there, sorry I had to spring it on you.  If you look closely you'll see some of the leaves that made it past the Less-Leafer.

From there they go to the grinder.  Now, in a new mill, the grinder is this fairly innocuous cylinder that makes some noise, but otherwise it's fairly non-obtrusive.  Maybe 2 or 3 feet around.

Compare that to a traditional mill that has these HUGE big stones that rotate around and smash the olives into smithereens.

I was really expecting something a bit bigger than how big the grinder was. 



It's all very modern, computer controlled, and they have software on their personal computers that is also hooked into the mill machinery.



This machine was pretty cool.  So, when the grinder gets done, it spits it into here.  There are three of these bins side by side, all mixing the stuff up so they can have one guy finishing his press and another grinding his with another guy queued up all at the same time.  It mixes up the mush which has about the consistency of a pretty wet cement so that you get as consistent of olive oil at the end as possible.  Do

Also, it also allows the small oil droplets to combine together into larger ones which makes it easier to separate the oil from the water later in the process.  It's mixed here for 20-40 minutes and usually heated.  The bins are closed so that less oxidation happens, which damages the life and quality of the resulting oil.



So this is a picture of the inside of the operation.  You can see near the lady with the white coat the Less-Leafer, then hidden in the corner along the left wall is the Washer, after that is the grinder which you can barely see that's above the three bin cement... err olive mixers.  From there it goes to the Centrifuge.

The Centrifuge was a fairly serious piece of machinery.  It has a HUGE loud noise that it makes not unlike a jet engine.  Which is fairly apt as it is spinning on the order of several thousand RPM.  It is a continuous feed system which means that you don't have to load it with a batch and then spin it, remove it, then load another.  You just put stuff in one end and out of the other you get the liquids.  This is the machine that separates the solids (which you already saw in the big brown pile) from the liquids, oil and water.  I was reading some of the maintenance warnings on the centrifuge... not something to play around with I assure you.  When they shut down the centrifuge it took at least 10 minutes to come to a stop.  I hope those clampy things around it are secure.



This is the final machine, the Separator.  I have no idea how this thing works, but this week I'm definitely researching what makes it tick.  There are two of them here, probably to enhance their flow to make sure that they can still be separating one batch while starting to separate a new one from someone else.  This takes the liquids from the Centrifuge and separates it into new olive oil and water.  It also strains out some of the solids that are still present.  The olive oil then flows out the big metal spout into whatever container the customer brings... in this case the stainless steel cans.

A display of the oil that they had available for sale.



And finally a picture of what we've been doing this all for... Nuovo Olive Olio.  See how green it is?  That is what the Nuovo Olio is all about.  That fades fairly quickly, within a few months it won't be even as vibrant or bright and the taste will also mellow out some.







And that's it.  We went back to Luke and Bridgette's house and tried some of the new olive oil on bruscetta and enjoyed the fruits (or oil as it may be) of our labor.

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