Community Milling Day

That is up to you, but we have had people come with a bucket of olives to a truck load. If you want to join in and enjoy the process, even a couple ounces of oil will be fun.

Depending on the condition and cultivar of the olives, weather conditions and other variables, you can expect to get from 10-40 gallons per ton of olives. Bringing that down to a smaller ratio, you can possibly get .5 to 2 gallons of oil from 100 pounds of olives. 

No, unfortunately due to safety issues, we will not be able to allow anyone on the premises while we are milling the olives. There are too many moving parts, equipment moving, etc. that can lead to someone getting hurt. Only Olivina staff will be on the premises during the olive milling. We hope to, in the future, to have an area constructed where people can watch the milling of olives in a safe observation room.

It is helpful if you are aware of the cultivar of your olives. We will inspect all of the olives as they come in that morning to attempt to identify the type (cultivar) of olive, condition of the olives and then weigh them for record keeping.

Yes, please complete as much of the Community Milling Day contract as you can and bring with you for check-in. We will work with you to complete the last remaining lines, such as weight, cultivar, and condition.

You can get the milling agreement by clicking this link to pre-fill before the Community Milling Day. 

Please bring clean sanitized containers that can be sealed after placing your oil in the container. Preferably a new clean plastic jug will work best for transportation that has a cap that can be screwed on for a tight seal. We will only have a few extra containers on hand, so to ensure that your oil will be ready for you, please bring a container with you. Also please place a label with your name on them to help us determine your container from the other containers.

If you have multiple cultivars of olives, bring separate containers for each cultivar.

Once home please transfer into stainless steel or dark glass sealed container.

Depending on the size of your tree(s), you can either hand pick them into a bucket by gently pulling down on the olive branches, without ripping leaves or twigs from your trees, to bring the olives off. If the tree is taller, then lay out a tarp under the tree branches and then use a pole such as a length of plastic pipe to tap the limbs to shake them. The olives will fall on to the tarp, then you can fold up the tarp and place the olives into a container. Please try to remove as many of the leaves, stems and twigs from your olive containers.

Store the olives in an open container that allows the olives to stay cool till you bring them to Olivina. By piling the olives on top of each other, it will build up heat, which accelerates the breakdown of the olive. It is best to store them where they stay neutral temperature, so they don’t freeze overnight, such as outside or get too warm from being contained or warmed up (like in the garage or in an ice chest).

If the olives are dried or shriveled up, then they may not have received enough water or the tree was not supplying enough energy to that branch. If the olives appear to have little pin prick marks on the olive, it might be an indication of the olive fruit fly planting it’s larvae into the olive. You may want to cut open a few of your olives to see if you see damaged olive, maybe a little trail, like an ant trail, inside the olive where the larvae was eating his way through the olive. If there is substantial damage of your olives, there is a chance that we would need to reject your olives and not mill them, asking you to take them home and put in your recycle bin for composting. 

It is best to pick your olives just before we mill them, so I would recommend that you pick your olives on Saturday afternoon or very early Sunday morning and then store them correctly (see above). You will find that the olives will be green, burgundy and black in color, based on ripening. Since we are harvesting in the middle of the harvest period, we will likely see olives of all colors. It is the inside of the olive that will reflect the truematurity of the olive, not necessarily the exterior color.

We are looking at the condition of the olive to make sure that they are in satisfactory condition, free of olive fly damage, minimal leaves or twigs. There can be NO dirt, pebbles, rocks, etc. that can damage the olive mill.

Directions are available on our website for those that are not familiar with where we are. Please DO NOT stop at the historic Olivina arch, but go further down Arroyo Road about 1.3 miles till you see our wrought iron gates. Gates will be open during the period of 8 a.m. to 11:00 and then pickup times of your oil will be on Monday at Noon or 6:00. Other arrangements can be made for those that come from out of the area or have other limitations.