The production of extra virgin olive oil takes place mainly in a oil mill , a place designated to transform olives into oil, where in ancient times the stone millstones resided which today have been replaced by modern machinery capable of producing more oil in less time, while maintaining the same quality. Our oil mill is located in the historic walls of Albenga, in Liguria.

The oil production takes place in several phases : we obviously start from the olive harvest up to the pressing. Everything in between is the work that millers and farms, like ours, have to put in place to produce quality extra virgin olive oil.

Let's discover together all these stages of olive processing useful for producing oil in the mill.

The stages of olive oil production

The production phases of olive oil begin with the collection of olives which must be done in the correct period so that they have reached the right ripeness and using suitable manual and mechanical tools in order not to ruin the drupe and therefore 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.

The ideal would be for the olives to be crushed immediately after harvesting to optimize their conservation. This is not always possible, therefore slotted baskets are used that allow complete aeration of the olives, protecting their quality.

The phases of their processing can be basically divided into 5 different steps :

1. washing
2. the pressing
3. kneading
4. squeezing
5. storage

Washing

The olives , once arrived in the mill and weighed before undergoing washing, are poured into a loading hopper (a sort of funnel used especially for agricultural products) whose task is to transfer all the olives to the conveyor belt that leads them to the defoliator 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, earth.
A once washed, our olives are ready for the second phase of oil production: pressing.

The pressing

The second phase involves crushing the olives to obtain a thick and creamy paste with a pungent odor. The pressing uses mechanical discs that crush the drupes without causing friction and thus avoid their heating: in this way it is possible to avoid starting oxidation mechanisms (activated by heat) while maintaining the quality of this paste, made up of peel, pulp. and olive stone.

The pressing methods are: continuous cycle in modern mills and discontinuous cycle in traditional crushers that use granite millstones that are able to crush the olives thanks to their weight.In modern mills, however, mechanical discs are used which, by rotating on the olives, allow them to be crushed and obtain a homogeneous paste in a short time, thus avoiding oxidation that could deteriorate the final product
The resulting paste is ready for the third phase : malaxing.

The kneading

The paste is transferred to the kneading machine where , thanks to the presence of mechanical arms, is stirred 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 drops that float on the water itself. This break occurs inside watertight tanks to protect the oil from oxidation; furthermore, the malaxing phase must be completed in 30 minutes, otherwise there is a risk of obtaining a product with a high acidity and irreparably compromised organoleptic properties.

The squeezing

Squeezing is the last of the phases that lead to the production of oil; can take place hot or cold.
In this step all you have to do is separate the three components that make up the paste obtained during kneading, namely:

• the oily wort
• the pomace
• the vegetation water

This separation can take place in two ways :

• with the centrifuge: the rotation at high speed causes the separation of these three components thanks to their different specific weight;
• with filters, equipped with holes called fiscoli , which exert pressure on the kneaded paste that allows the oily must to escape, separating it from the pomace which is instead trapped in the fiscoli;

At the end of the pressing, an oil that is already usable is obtained, edible even if very cloudy. To make it clearer, that is, to deprive it of residual water and air bubbles, it must be passed into the decanter . Once filtered and allowed the residues to settle on the bottom, our oil is ready to be bottled and then stored.

The storage

Storage consists of pouring the oil into special containers that protect the green gold from light and heat sources.
For this reason the extra virgin olive oil pontini 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 an articulated process which consists of several phases, all very important and delicate, which can be achieved thanks to modern equipment and the irreplaceable work of the operators.