Darkening Pickled Olives

Categories: Fruit Growing

Is there anything that will make olives keep their black color when put

into lye? When I put my first picking of ripe olives in lye, a large

part of them turn green, the black leaving the fruit. My formula is one

pound of lye to five gallons of water. Have you any better formula?



By exposing the olives to the light and air, either during the salting

or immediately after, ripe olives may be given a uniformly black colo .

Also, fruit which is less ripe and which shows red and green patches

after processing with lye, becomes an almost uniform dark brown color.

To do this, the olives are removed from the brine and exposed to light

and air freely for one or two days. Your lye was stronger than

necessary. With ripe olives it is desirable to use salt and lye together

to prevent softening, and the common prescription is two ounces of

potash lye and four ounces of salt to the gallon of water after the

bitterness is largely removed by using one or two treatments with two

ounces of lye to the gallon without the salt. It is necessary to draw

off the solution, rinse well, and put on fresh solution several times

during the process to get the best results.