How to Cure Olives in Salt Brine (Step by Step)

At the end of autumn it is olive picking time in NZ. If you've got access to olives, preserving some is definitely the way to go. My favourite way to preserve them is through making salt brine cured olives. This post will show you how to cure olives in a salt brine.

Salty, flavourful little morsels that beat store-bought by a mile. Many store-bought olives are lye-cured which changes the real olive texture and taste.

Making your own cured olives feels like such an accomplishment. Tending to your olives, refreshing the brine, tasting and testing...

Once they're finished the taste will outweigh the effort spent on the brining. If you have an olive tree (or a few) on your property you'll know how abundantly they can produce. Unless you're planning on pressing for oil, in which case you'll usually need 50kg minimum, there's not much else to do with olives except for curing them.

Picking the Olives

The process for cured olives takes patience but the effort involved is not difficult. Start by picking your olives. Choose the darkest, fattest olives that are unblemished.

If you squeeze one, it should release a milky liquid if it's ready to brine.

Once you have your selection, if you have a real difference in colours, you can sort the greener ones away from the black ones. This is because the green ones are less mature and will need a little longer to brine and lose their bitterness.

Washing the Olives

Once your olives are sorted, wash them well and remove any really damaged olives you missed while picking. A little bird pecked is fine, but if they are starting to rot then take those out.

The same goes for any dry and shrivelled looking olives. You want them as plump and damaged free as possible.

Slitting and Soaking the Olives

Now here's the bit that will determine how long your cured olives will take. You can choose now to slit your olives, or leave them whole. Slitting each olive will allow the water and salt to penetrate it faster and remove the bitterness.

If you leave them whole, they'll need to sit in a brine a lot longer.

To slit the olives, use a sharp knife to cut a little slit into each olive. Alternatively, you can carefully 'crush' your olives with a heavy object such as a meat tenderiser or a flat stone. Crush them enough to just break the skin but not to completely flatten the olives.

Now, give them an initial soak in plain water for a 2-3 days, changing the water daily. Keep the olives completely submerged in the water (use a plate or weight to hold them under).

How To Cure Olives

After soaking in water, it is time to soak your olives in brine. You can make a simple brine solution using a ratio of 1 parts salt to 10 parts water. Use an unprocessed salt such as rock salt or sea salt.

Cover the olives with the brine in a bucket, jar or container with a lid. Make sure the olives are again completely submerged. I put mine in a bucket and an upside down plate works to hold them down. Loosely seal the jar or container with a lid. You may need to open it every couple of days for the first week to release some of the gases. Alternatively an airlock can be used.

If you have slit or crushed your olives, they may only need to sit in brine for 1-2 months depending on taste. If you have left them whole they can sit in brine for 6 months or longer.

Changing The Olive Brine

Check the olives weekly to see if the brine needs changing.

How often you change the brine is dependant on the environment and how quickly you want them to be ready. If the olives stay submerged and there is no sign of mould, the brine doesn't need to be changed. If mould is growing, simply tip the brine out, rinse the olives and make fresh brine.

Changing the brine weekly will leach out the bitterness faster.

Taste your olives after a month or so. If they are still too bitter, keep soaking them until you are happy.

If they are very salty, don't worry for now. The main quest is to remove the bitterness.

Once the bitterness has gone, tip out the salt brine and refill the bucket with fresh water. Soak your olives in fresh water for a day or two. This will help remove some of the salt.

Bottling the Olives

Now it is time to jar up your olives in sterilised preserving jars.

As the olives prepared this way will be quite salty, I place them in a vinegar brine at the end.(I use my homemade apple cider vinegar).

This will draw out some of the excess salt and add flavour. Add in any other flavourings you like too, such as lemon, lime, garlic, oregano, rosemary, chilli.

My vinegar brine is at a ratio of 3 part salt, 10 part vinegars, 40 parts water. For example, 30g salt, 100g vinegar and 400g water makes about half a litre of vinegar/salt brine.

Cover the olives with the vinegar brine and flavourings. Ensure the olives are submerged under the brine. Pour over a little layer of olive oil which will stop oxygen touching the olives. Screw the lid on the jars, and let them sit for a week to infuse the newly added flavours before sampling.

Olives like this can store in a sealed jar for up 6 months in a cool dark place, or in the refrigerator for up to a year. Once opened (meaning, once the olives are no longer kept under the olive oil), use within a month.

Happy curing!

Have you made these? Tag me and let me know! @home_grown_happinessnz