The production of extra virgin olive oil mainly takes place in a mill, a place designated for transforming olives into oil, where ancient stone mills used to reside, which have now been replaced by modern machinery capable of producing more oil in less time, while still maintaining the same quality. Our mill is located within the historic walls of Albenga, in Liguria.
The production of oil occurs in several stages: it obviously starts with the harvesting of olives and goes all the way to pressing. Everything in between consists of the work that millers and farms, like ours, must implement to produce quality extra virgin olive oil.
Let’s discover together all these stages of olive processing necessary to produce oil in the mill.
The stages of olive oil production
The stages of producing olive oil begin with the harvesting of olives which must be done at the right time so that they have reached the proper ripeness and using suitable manual and mechanical tools to avoid damaging the drupe and thus the quality of the oil itself. After being harvested, the olives are transported to the mill where they are weighed and recorded before being processed.
Ideally, the olives should be milled immediately after harvesting to optimize their preservation. This is not always possible, therefore cracked baskets are used that allow for complete aeration of the olives, protecting their quality.
The stages of their processing can essentially be divided into 5 different steps:
- washing
- crushing
- malaxation
- pressing
- storage
The washing
The olives, once they arrive at the mill and are weighed before being washed, are poured into a loading hopper (a type of funnel used especially for agricultural products) whose task is to transfer all the olives to the conveyor belt that leads them to the leaf remover which separates the olives from the leaves.
At this point, washing takes place, a very important phase, during which the olives are cleaned of all impurities such as mud, twigs, bark, and soil.
Once washed, our olives are ready for the second phase of oil production: crushing.
The crushing
The second phase involves the crushing of the olives to obtain a dense and creamy paste, with a pungent smell. Crushing uses mechanical discs that crush the drupes without causing friction and thus avoid heating them: in this way, oxidation mechanisms (activated by heat) are prevented, maintaining the quality of this paste, made up of the skin, pulp, and pit of the olives.
The methods of crushing are: continuous cycle in modern mills and discontinuous cycle in traditional mills that use granite stones which can crush the olives thanks to their weight. In modern mills, mechanical discs are used that, by rotating over the olives, allow them to be crushed and obtain a homogeneous paste in quick times, thus avoiding oxidation that could deteriorate the final product.
The paste obtained is ready for the third phase: malaxation.
The malaxation
The paste is transferred to the malaxer where, thanks to the presence of mechanical arms, it is mixed and gently heated; however, the temperature must never exceed 27/28°C. This phase is the most delicate of the entire production chain of oil, because at this moment the oil-water emulsions break: the oil droplets are released from the water and form larger oil droplets that float on the water itself. This breaking occurs inside airtight tanks to protect the oil from oxidation; moreover, the malaxation phase must be completed within 30 minutes, otherwise, there is a risk of obtaining a product with high acidity and irreparably compromised organoleptic properties.
The pressing
The pressing is the last of the phases that lead to the production of oil; it can occur hot or cold.
In this step, all that is done is separate the three components that make up the paste obtained during malaxation, namely:
- the oily must
- the pomace
- the vegetation water
This separation can occur in two ways:
- with the centrifuge: the high-speed rotation causes the separation of these three components due to their different specific weights;
- with filters, equipped with holes called fiscals, which exert pressure on the malaxed paste that allows the oily must to flow out, separating it from the pomace which remains trapped in the fiscs;
At the end of the pressing, an oil that is already usable is obtained, edible even if very cloudy. To make it clearer and to remove the residues of water and air bubbles, it must be passed through the decanter. Once filtered and allowing the residues to settle at the bottom, our oil is ready to be bottled and thus stored.
The storage
The storage consists of pouring the oil into special containers that protect the green gold from light and heat sources.
For this reason, the bottles of extra virgin olive oil Sommariva are made of dark glass, to keep the organoleptic properties of the oil intact.
The production of olive oil, modernity and tradition meet
The production of oil in the mill is a complex process that consists of several stages, all very important and delicate, made possible thanks to modern equipment and the irreplaceable work of the operators.
Do you want to discover how an ancient mill is made?
Come visit us in Albenga, you will find all the contact details in the contacts.