oliveoil

fernhill Image
03/04/2010 - 11:45

has anyone produced their own oil from their own trees in PugliA AND HOW MANY trees do you need .

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聽As a rough guide. An average mature tree will produce about 20/30 kg of olives, you get between 11 & 13% return in oil. A fratolio (mill/press) will聽normally accept a minimum of 2.5 quintale (1 quintale = 100kg) and charge 鈧12 per per quintale for crushing, pressing and suppyling you with that lovely gold stuff. 10 trees - 250 kg - 30 kg of oil (30L) - cost 鈧30 plus a lot of hard graft, trust me. Hope this helps Stribs聽

聽what stribs says is pretty well the story.the only points on which i would add are that the resa ie. the productivity can be higher up to even 50 kg on a big tree and the oil extracted can go up to 19/20 kg.per quintale.we always pick fairly late usually around the middle of november this over years has led to a higher level of oil as the "water" in the fruit is less.we have 104 trees on a good year taking into account weather interuptions can take 2/3 weeks for 2/4 people (all variables) pretty well full time so if you calculate 8 hrs per day x 3 people x 15 days at theoretical 10 euro x hour you start to see the lack of profit in the story.we always have to put people on "contracts by the day" otherwise the risks of gigantic fines from the work inspectorate would be unsustainable

The man we bought our house from has another one closer to the paese and, while we were waiting for the notary to call us in, we started chatting about his houses and why he was selling the lovely old farm house we were buying and he was hanging on to the 70s horror up the road. The answer was obvious to him 鈥 the farmhouse had no olive trees (this is Umbria, you understand!). Then he paused and added thoughtfully, 鈥淎ctually, if I calculate the upkeep of the trees, the labour costs and the frantoio costs, each litre of oil I produce costs me 鈧100! Perhaps you鈥檝e got a bargain!鈥. He is a retired urologist and doesn鈥檛 actually produce his oil commercially but he says that his friends and relatives get an excellent but VERY expensive oil as gifts every year.

If tempted to bottle your oil within say twelve months of production please allow a fair bit of room for expansion above the oil as a gas is given off and a 5 litre demijohn of oil can take a lot of clearing up! I do agree that producing your own oil is like sailing , good fun but totally without profit. However nice bottles of your quality oil do make very good presents for your friends, produce a pretty label with that expensive computer and use green bottles as light is not good for oil ( and don't forget the air space) Oh, and your oil will be quality oil and will solidify in the UK winter so a little note on the label saying this signifies a superior oil wont go amiss