Home Cured Olives

You cannot eat olives raw, they are disgusting. However, correctly cured, they are amazing! Doing them at home ensures there are no chemicals used in the process and you can also add your own flavour twists. We absolutely love chilli and garlic but a few other favourites are lemon rind or rosemary and orange peel.

But lets not prattle on, lets get into how you can do this yourself.

The best time to pick olives depends on your climate and the type of olive. For our region, Victoria Australia, we’ve found that late May (end Autumn) to early June (start winter) is the best time to catch them at their prime for curing. Once you have picked the olives, follow these simple steps,

Step 1: Wash your olives. You don’t need to be vigorous and don’t worry about all the little stems, we leave them on.

Step 2: Make up a 3% salt solution (30g of salt per litre of water). It doesn’t sound like much but it works. You can speed up the process by going up to 10% but we learnt this from an old Albanian man and he insisted 3% was best. Over the years we have found this to be spot on giving us the best texture and flavour.

The salt dissolves faster if the water is warm or hot. Once the solution is made up, let it cool. Use food grade buckets and fill with the olives. Then pour over the salt solution until they are fully covered. Use something to weigh them down, we use old plates. This is not essential but we always do this to ensure full submersion.

Place the lids on your buckets or storage vessel and store out of the sunlight.

Step 3: After 3-5 days, empty the salt solution, rinse and repeat. You will continue to go through this process for 3-6 months depending on the olives you use. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to replace the salt solution every 3-5 days. This time frame will slowly stretch out. Early on during the curing process, a “bloom”, a layer of yeast or bacteria can form on the surface of the brine or water used to cure the olives. This bloom can appear as a whitish or cloudy film and is a natural part of the fermentation process.

As you continually replace the salt solution the bloom impact lessens. We once forgot about them for over a month and the water looked rather disgusting. But we just washed them really well and pushed on.

We live off grid for water with no mains connection. We therefore do not pour the salt solution down the drains. We also don’t put it into the soil. We have a long concrete driveway that we empty them onto so that it evaporates.

After a couple of months, you want to start tasting olives. You’ll still taste the bitterness at first but with time it will fade and you start tasting the fruitiness of the olives. It’s a wonderful metamorphoses! Don’t settle for any bitterness, be patient and wait for the flavour profile to be perfect.

Step 4: Once you are happy with the flavour, it’s time to jar up!

Mix up a new salt solution, this time at just 2%. Sterilise your jars and let them cool. Fill the jars with your olives and add any flavouring that you want. Our most favourite, by a long shot, is one clove of garlic and a sprinkle of chilli flakes. It is amazing how much the flavour of each penetrates the olives.

Pour over the salt solution. If you pour the solution in hot, it will help to seal your jars. Leave at least 10-15mm of head space. Before placing the lid on, pour in enough olive oil to cover the solution at the top. This helps to seal them for long term storage. For any flavoured olives, we usually give them 3 weeks before eating them just so the flavours can penetrate.

Step 5: Eat and enjoy!