Extra virgin olive oil from the olive

The olive harvest

The olive harvest is an important moment in the production of extra virgin olive oil. Necessary to identify the optimal time to harvest to have a high quality oil. Generally in our company the harvest begins the last week of September. In this period there is a low oil yield (8-9 l per 100 kg of olives), but with an intensity of flavors and scents. The collection should be timely and as fast as possible for this purpose is used the shaker.

To produce the extra virgin you can collect, with the varieties in our company, ottobratica and sandeel, until November when the olives are still at the stage of veraison phenological that is half green and half black.

Once harvested the olives must be transferred to the mill in the shortest possible time. Since we are milled the same day of collection in the olive press.

Getting Started
The olives are prepared prior to extraction real.
Sorting: is to clean the olives by separating them from the ground, twigs and leaves and is carried out with the use of static or vibrating screens;
Weighing: is carried out at the oil after transport and unloading;
Dry: the olives are immersed in a tub of water and are used in today's modern special washing machines with which you get a more thorough cleaning. At the end of the operation the olives are dried through the draining water. 

The milling is the first real step of extracting the oil. The resulting compound is the paste, a semi-fluid mass composed of fragments of stones, peel, pulp, water and oil.
Pressing: The hammer crusher is the most widely used in today's modern machinery. The load is picked olives mechanically exit of the washing machine, the paste obtained after processing is then poured into the kneading. The operation was a very short time and is widely used in processing procedures in a continuous cycle.

GRAMOLATURA:

this operation is performed by machines called kneaders or kneading, which are intended to break the emulsion of oil and water coming from the stage of milling. The oil droplets tend to separate automatically from the water through the mixing action, which occurs in a stainless steel tanks where revolve helical blades, which carry 20-30 revolutions per minute. The phase of kneading for a period not exceeding 60 minutes

ESTRAZIONE:

regards the process of separation of wort oil from the olive paste.
The operation takes place by centrifugation: the dough oil undergoes centrifugation in a cone rotating horizontal (decanter) at a rotation speed of 3000-3500 rpm. To effect of centrifugation are obtained three fractions: the residue, the wort oil and vegetable water

SEPARAZIONE:

is the process of separation of oil from water.
Centrifugation vertical: this process concerns both the wort oil that the vegetation water, which because of the different densities are separated in two different outflows from vertical centrifugal separators. Subsequently, through the rotation, the solid residues (sludge) are eliminated by an automated security system.