Rox, an Olive oil question

[curly]

Rox,

Me, my wife and 10 year old daughter built a log cabin on 40 acres in South Carolina 3 years ago. We want to plant some trees that will produce fruit. I'm 53 so my daughter and her kids may get to enjoy them more than me but we want to get started this year. This won't be an orchard for making money, just for our and our friends consumption, although we will surely sell some basket fulls at the local farmers market.

We want to buy a few pecan trees, almond trees, walnut trees, apple trees, peach trees, plum and cherry trees. All about 8-9 ft tall to begin with.

But I noticed that this online nursery Welcome to TyTy Online Plant & Pecan Tree Nursery: The Nursery at TyTy sells Olive trees. I love olive oil to dip bread in. I've probably never had a good brand like you make, we use Bertolli right off the shelf at any grocery store. I'm like Bird, I like this stuff so much I can't imagine what I would do if I ever tried the good stuff, I'm sure I'd end up spending a lot more money on the stuff.

Here are my choices:
Arbequina
Barouni
Kalamata
Lucca
Manzanillo
Mission
Sevillano

It looks like I can get a 7 yr old tree (6-7 ft tall) for about $350.


Since they will grow in our zone I thought I'd pose this question to you. If we had a tree, could we squeeze our own Olive oil? I have a Green Star juicer that uses no heat to sqeeze juice. It uses 2 gears and the juice comes out one place while all of the pulp comes out another. Would that make extra virgin olive oil? Or is it just so much more complicated that all of that

 

[TBDonnelly]

If we had a tree, could we squeeze our own Olive oil?

Sure. This is how I would do it. Now when Rox chimes in, there may be another way.

Don

 

[curly]

Sure. This is how I would do it. Now when Rox chimes in, there may be another way.

Don

Wow Don, she makes it look like real fun, how much does she charge an hour?

 

[TBDonnelly]

Wow Don, she makes it look like real fun, how much does she charge an hour?

Well.......it just depends. She makes the virgin olive oil. If you want extra virgin olive oil her twin sister joins in. Then the price doubles. Now, If you only want olive oil, I can get you a better price and have my mother-in-law help out.

Ahhh, Rox you better jump in here (opps, excuse the pun ) before I get myself in trouble.

Don

 

[curly]

Well.......it just depends. She makes the virgin olive oil. If you want extra virgin olive oil her twin sister joins in. Then the price doubles. Now, If you only want olive oil, I can get you a better price and have my mother-in-law help out.

Ahhh, Rox you better jump in here (opps, excuse the pun ) before I get myself in trouble.

Don

Hey Don, that's some funny stuff, I'm still laughing (twin sisters...now what are the odds)...but methinks you are already in some hot water


Yeah, Rox will have something to add I'm sure

 

[ronjhall]

I saw on another post that Rox was on a trip to the good old USA. Hope she has access to the Internet while here.
You may want to send her a PM about this thread.

 

[curly]

I saw on another post that Rox was on a trip to the good old USA. Hope she has access to the Internet while here.
You may want to send her a PM about this thread.

Thanks

 

[FrogLick]

Curly I know more about the tasting part rather than the specific varieties, but I think that of the choices you mentioned Lucca might be the best for oil. Don't know what the yield might be from a single tree, but it would certainly be interesting to try a home juicer and see what you get. Olive pits are pretty tough so it might damage the juicer though. By the way, if you want to explore tasting a little more but don't want to spend as much as oils of Rox's quality, step up from Bertoli to Lucini as a starter. I can't wait for Rox to get in on this one and hope she appreciates Don's sense of humor.

 

[curly]

Curly I know more about the tasting part rather than the specific varieties, but I think that of the choices you mentioned Lucca might be the best for oil. Don't know what the yield might be from a single tree, but it would certainly be interesting to try a home juicer and see what you get. Olive pits are pretty tough so it might damage the juicer though. By the way, if you want to explore tasting a little more but don't want to spend as much as oils of Rox's quality, step up from Bertoli to Lucini as a starter. I can't wait for Rox to get in on this one and hope she appreciates Don's sense of humor.

Thanks Frog, I'll see if I can find the Lucini brand around here.

 

[curly]

Well, I just got back from Food Lion and they only had a couple of brands. One was Bertoli and the other was Calabria. So I got the Calabria this time. I'm in Union SC so we are limited

But, they had whole ribeyes on sale for $4.99 a lb so I got a 20 lb ribeye and brought it home and made 10 steaks out of it

That with a salad (gotta watch the weight). Then grind some fresh parmasian cheese and fresh ground pepper in the olive oil and slather bread in there. Doggit man, I'm getting hungry now

 

[RavensRoost]

Curly, can't offer any help on selecting an olive tree to plant, but in the meantime, if you see Goya brand olive oil it is supposed to be good and not that expensive.

RavensRoost

 

[curly]

Curly, can't offer any help on selecting an olive tree to plant, but in the meantime, if you see Goya brand olive oil it is supposed to be good and not that expensive.

RavensRoost

Thanks, I'll keep my eye out for that brand. This new brand I bought was not as good to me as the other brand we use. Now, that may only mean that it's a better brand and my taste buds are ruint

But that 2 lb ribeye was very tasty I got the cooker up to about 700 degrees and put the 1 1/2 inch steak right down close to the coals. About 4 minutes each side and then shut the flames down and let it dwell for 4 more minutes...a perfect medium rare. OK, I saved a small piece of it for tomorrow, gotta watch those arteries.

And we didn't have any parmesian to grind up into the olive oil (maybe that's why I didn't like it as much). The wife said it had mold on it so she threw the whole cake of parmasian out. Can't you just scrape mold off of cheese?

 

[jinman]

Curly, I'm not completely positive about this, but I believe Rox said in another thread that they grind up the whole olives (pit and all) when they are kinda green and then do a cold press for the best grade of oil. What remains is then heated and pressed for the next grade of oil. The first cold press is done very soon after picking while the fruits are very fresh. Rox has mentioned that the mill they use will thoroughly clean their press before starting on their olives. That way they maintain the highest control of the quality and taste of the oil.

 

[curly]

Hmmmm, yeah, it may be beyond my means huh?

 

[FrogLick]

Curly I share your pain about what's available in a smaller town living in one myself. Don't know if you have Kroger supermarkets near where you are or not but that's where I buy Lucini. Lucini is a widely distributed Italian oil and I've notice that Mario Bataldi uses it a lot on his cooking show. It's not one of the $$$ superpremium olive oils but certainly affordable and to my taste a really good all around EVO. Low acidity (< 0.5%) seems to be a common trait of the better oils and many of them have the acidity spec. on the label. I've tried Goya before and don't personally care for it - your taste buds may think otherwise.

 

[N80]

Kurt, here is a pretty good primer on olive trees. These folks sell them as well. I recently ordered a bottle of their olive oil.

Growing Olive Trees

 

[curly]

Well, we do get below 15 far once in awhile here in upstate SC. I may be out of the running already.

 

[curly]

Curly I share your pain about what's available in a smaller town living in one myself. Don't know if you have Kroger supermarkets near where you are or not but that's where I buy Lucini. Lucini is a widely distributed Italian oil and I've notice that Mario Bataldi uses it a lot on his cooking show. It's not one of the $$$ superpremium olive oils but certainly affordable and to my taste a really good all around EVO. Low acidity (< 0.5%) seems to be a common trait of the better oils and many of them have the acidity spec. on the label. I've tried Goya before and don't personally care for it - your taste buds may think otherwise.

No Kroger around here, but I will keep my eyes open for a Kroger as I run errands. I'm riding out to Bee Springs KY on my scoot at the end of this months, can't wait for that week-end.

 

[N80]

Mario Batali also recommended the Da Vero olive oil, that's how I found it. Rox's olive oil can be obtained on igourmet.com. Harris Teeter has a decent selection of olive oils and we have a new Earth Fare here in Rock Hill that has a very good selection. Not sure how far a drive that is from Union.

I would suspect that it is a bit too cool here for olive trees. If they were cheap it might be worth a try, but at that price I'm not sure I'd risk it. Just the spring before last we had a late frost that killed the buds, fruit and new leaves of almost every kind of non-conifer in the region. Peaches wiped out. No acorns. I think that kind of thing would wreck an olive tree.

 

[curly]

Mario Batali also recommended the Da Vero olive oil, that's how I found it. Rox's olive oil can be obtained on igourmet.com. Harris Teeter has a decent selection of olive oils and we have a new Earth Fare here in Rock Hill that has a very good selection. Not sure how far a drive that is from Union.

I would suspect that it is a bit too cool here for olive trees. If they were cheap it might be worth a try, but at that price I'm not sure I'd risk it. Just the spring before last we had a late frost that killed the buds, fruit and new leaves of almost every kind of non-conifer in the region. Peaches wiped out. No acorns. I think that kind of thing would wreck an olive tree.

Yeah, I believe that idea has been nixed. Oh well, it sounded like a sorta cool thing to do there for a while. But we're gonna get the nut trees anyway this year and make a start of something.