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<pre>Brian and Antoio,
Thank you very much for your quick respond to my query for the olive oil press.
I will follow your sugestions and contact those companies.
Iwould like to apologise for my delayed respond. Iwas away from my desk for few
days.
best regards
George
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<pre>I'm sorry I've been away from NZ on business. I wrote earlier that I am off
to South of France and Spain 22 Oct - 24th Nov to look at all aspects of
production etc and in particular presses - wot sort of press best suited
for smaller blocks etc etc etc. I'm getting confused by the sheer amount of
info.
I would appreciate anyone replying who is actually using a press for a
similar sized grove as us and based on the following:
- 1400 trees - 90% oil
- growing organically
- will probably process fruit for 1 -3 other smaller groves who are growing
organically
- is it better to use the smaller centrifuge systems OR will the more
traditional presses do the job.
- can I sell the "sizzle" of the traditional press as we are developing our
grove as much for the "eco tourist" and farm stay market as well as
marketing our organic olive oil?
- There is no doubt that the traditional press "looks the part" more than
a centrifuge system- will the extra price at the Frantoio cover the slower
and costlier processing of the oil?
- is anyone using the Oliomio 100 yet - either in Australia or USA/Europe
etc.
These FAQ and many more to follow - is there a solution??
Kind regards

John Bishop
-----Original Message-----
From: estate@biolea.gr [SMTP:estate@biolea.gr]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 9:45 AM
To: OliveOil@onelist.com
Subject: [OliveOil] olive oil press

From: estate@biolea.gr

Brian and Antoio,
Thank you very much for your quick respond to my query for the olive oil
press.
I will follow your sugestions and contact those companies.
Iwould like to apologise for my delayed respond. Iwas away from my desk for
few days.
best regards
George

***** Life is healthier with Olive Oil *****
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<pre>Hi John

We are using an Oliomio 100 and are in the process of upgrading to a 250

I am happy to answer questions

Kent Hallett
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<pre>Kent

I would be interested in swapping notes with you. This year I pressed
around 22 tonnes and found some key areas of the washer and press wanting.

Peter Caird
</pre>
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<pre>Peter/Kent

Prior to processing your olives through the press do you undertake the
removal of extraneous bits of material from the olive harvest e.g. leaves,
hard objects like small rocks etc. Do you wash the olives before putting it
through the press?

Regards,

Phil
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<pre>Phil

Trust this is squiggle free.

I have a washer/deleafer combination that is quite effective ($8400 from
Olives Aust) despite some probs early in the piece. Others I know utilise
one of those leaf blowing machines to winnow. Use of nets to capture the
harvested olive also reduces various debris. Some people just use black
plastic laid on the ground under the tree but I found that this collected
too much unwanted debris.

I would consider installing a sensor to detect metal objects or have a
strong magnet over the feed line when the olives are fed into the hopper.
Last year, to my dismay, a bolt found it's way through the washer and into
the hammer mill thereby causing great damage that took ages to remedy. The
grid itself is easy to change but the centrifuge was chock full of large
pits which caused it to jam. A full day was taken getting them out.

Regards
</pre>
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<pre>Very squiggle free thanks. The reason I posted that one on olive harvest
preparation was because the previous owner of our Oliomio had a small stone
enter the mill and cause some damage internally. I didn't want to advertise
that fact but I had hoped that it would provoke some discussion.

Those precautions you mentioned seemed very sensible, almost mandatory. Did
we see your washer machine when we visited last year? I have seen them
advertised in the Olives Australia armoury and was wondering whether they
were worth the money.

Regards,

Phil

As this year's harvest season approaches I was going back over my notes to
work out some contract pressing fees. I noticed that you were charging $300
per tonne to press. Is that still relevant and does that represent a fair
price for both processor and grower. That works out to be about $30 per hour
over a 10 hour period.
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<pre>Hi Phil

Re removal of leaves etc. before pressing

I am meticulous about the removal of all leaves and sticks from the
sample before pressing for making olive oil.

The foreign matter will affect the flavour of the olive oil and will
give you an olive oil with an undesirable taste. We employ someone at
the time of picking to remove all this material. We do this by passing
the olives through an air blast. It is surprising just how much rubbish
will blow away and that is easier than picking it all out by hand.
There will be a small amount of rubbish that passes through with the
fruit but it is a relatively simple job to hand pick this.

So far I have seen a number of home made 'Heath Robinson' type
arrangements to accomplish this and they mostly seem to do a better job
that the very expensive commercial machines. We use an industrial fan,
such as you would use to circulate air in a factory, and just pour the
olives through the air flow. We then catch them in a bin and do a final
hand pick of rubbish as they land in the bin. One neighbour uses the
ordinary household fan. I guess it is not needed indoors during winter
so he gets extra value on the cost of it.

Like many other new growers I did not think to clean my olives when I
sent my very first batch in to be pressed. The result taught me to never
do that again as the extra time, labour and cost of proper cleaning is
more than repaid in the quality of the olive oil that you will receive
from good clean fruit.

In my opinion you can get away with not washing fruit if necessary but
you can't avoid removing sticks and leaves if you want a good quality
product.

Have fun with this because if you are doing a big quantity you will
probably see olives and leaves in your sleep

Cheers

Kent Hallett
</pre>
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<pre>Hi Phil

Re removal of leaves etc. before pressing

I am meticulous about the removal of all leaves and sticks from the
sample before pressing for making olive oil.

The foreign matter will affect the flavour of the olive oil and will
give you an olive oil with an undesirable taste. We employ someone at
the time of picking to remove all this material. We do this by passing
the olives through an air blast. It is surprising just how much rubbish
will blow away and that is easier than picking it all out by hand.
There will be a small amount of rubbish that passes through with the
fruit but it is a relatively simple job to hand pick this.

So far I have seen a number of home made 'Heath Robinson' type
arrangements to accomplish this and they mostly seem to do a better job
that the very expensive commercial machines. We use an industrial fan,
such as you would use to circulate air in a factory, and just pour the
olives through the air flow. We then catch them in a bin and do a final
hand pick of rubbish as they land in the bin. One neighbour uses the
ordinary household fan. I guess it is not needed indoors during winter
so he gets extra value on the cost of it.

Like many other new growers I did not think to clean my olives when I
sent my very first batch in to be pressed. The result taught me to never
do that again as the extra time, labour and cost of proper cleaning is
more than repaid in the quality of the olive oil that you will receive
from good clean fruit.

In my opinion you can get away with not washing fruit if necessary but
you can't avoid removing sticks and leaves if you want a good quality
product.

Have fun with this because if you are doing a big quantity you will
probably see olives and leaves in your sleep

Cheers

Kent Hallett
</pre>
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<pre>Kent,

Thank you for those excellent words of experience. Peter Caird in Victoria
has also been very helpful in preparing us for this year's pressings and
your comments are much appreciated.

Regards,

Phil
</pre>
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