OVERVIEW
As part of EUREKA, a European program dedicated to promoting innovation and development in the EEC, we invested in a new decanter that has helped us refine our extraction process for the 2008 harvest. Our belief is that by extracting the oil quickly, without heating the crushed olives, the resulting oil will have a very low level of peroxides and be more resistant to oxidation. We have accomplished this by utilizing extremely cold temperatures and a short timespan between milling the olives and extracting the oil. We are proud to say that our hard work has payed off and that the quality of our oils has improved significantly as well as the output.
PROCESS
Our new decanter is composed of two different bodies running at two different speeds which that produce 3,000 kgs/hour of pure extra virgin olive oil! The inner body takes the crushed olives out of the decanter just after the oil is extracted. We increased the speed of the inner body in order to reduce the time the crushed olives are in the decanter during the extraction of the oil. By doing so, we reduce the temperature during the extraction process as well as the oxidation of the oil. After the oil is extracted via the decanter, it is placed in a high-speed centrifuge with water that cleans the oil. The oil is then decanted again, naturally, in one of the many small receptacles at the mill where the organic residue stays at the bottom of receptacle.
RESULTS
Enclosed is an analytical report of the oil produced via our new extraction method versus oil from our previous method of extraction. The maximum level of peroxides allowed by law is 20. However, the peroxide level of our oil has always been very low. Even so, the report shows that the peroxide level of the oil produced by our new extraction method is 50% less than the oil from our previous method of extraction and is therefore significantly more resistant to oxidation! |
