Q&A for How to Cure Olives

At least one day before consuming, rinse the olives out of the brine. If they are too salty, soak them in fresh water overnight, then marinate them in olive oil and whatever spices and herbs you prefer. For long term storage, put your olives in a glass jar, add herbs and spices, then add one third fresh brine (saturated solution), one third white vinegar and a third olive oil. Put on the lid and store somewhere dark and cool for at least a few months to develop a good flavour. The olives should last for years when preserved properly.

Store them covered with fresh water, changing it daily if possible. This will also help leach the tannins from the olives.

That is a difficult question as it is probably impossible to know just how much of the substance is in your jar. Ferrous gluconate is a source of iron, often prescribed to treat iron deficiency anemia (not enough iron in the body to make oxygen-carrying hemoglobin). As such an adult can be prescribed up to 1 gram a day, and it's hard to believe they would be adding much more iron then that. As with all such things, try one! I'm sure many others have already. If you don't have a problem have a few more. Enjoy. There are many sights that will tell you of side effects and things to look for.

Yes; however, the lye causes the ripe olives to loose their color. They will look less vibrant and will taste more like a green olive than a black (brine). If they are very ripe then may be a bit softer, which is not in keeping with the normal style of olives.

Fresh olives should taste delicious, but sometimes bitter, which is normal. Taste a fresh olive so that you will be able to make a comparison as you process them. If the olives start to taste bad, moldy, or are fizzy, then they have gone bad, and you should throw them out. The salt and vinegar used during processing will create an environment that will keep bad microbes at bay, so do not skimp on them in an effort to cut down on sodium.

No. Olives are not acidic enough for a water-bath canner.

Pour it down your kitchen sink. It will act like weak Drano and help keep your pipes clean. Run the cold water tap afterwards to rinse the lye solution out of your plumbing. (Please wear rubber gloves, and don't let the lye solution splash on you. If it does, jump in the shower, fast, and rub-scrub before it eats through your skin. Also, protect your eyes. Strong lye can blind you in 1 second.)

No. When processing, you want to keep them in a cool (not cold) dark place. The bitter acid needs to jiggle its way out of the olive and refrigeration will slow that down. In some processes, fermentation is a part of the process, which refrigeration will also slow down.

Amazon sells food-grade lye.

The type of salt crystal you use will matter if you're using cups rather than weight to measure the ratio of salt to olives. Small, dense rock salt will pack more into a cup than flaky sea or kosher salt, so the ratios will be off.

You can water bath can anything that is high acid. If the brine has vinegar, you might be able to. You can get some PH strips and make sure it's 4.6 or lower (more acidic=lower number). You could always add a bit more vinegar to get it to the necessary acidity. But, from the sound of it, they should be good for a year, in the jars with the brine, without even canning them. I have stored sundried tomatoes in olive oil in the pantry for a year just fine without canning them.

Yes, it is. They will bubble for about 10 days. Just slowly release the top every day and replace the water.

If the olives stink, look moldy, or feel slimy, then I would throw them away. Otherwise, they should be fine to use as long as they taste okay.

Here ounces is a weight measurement, and tablespoons a volume measurement (for example, there are a lot more tablespoons involved in 2 oz of feathers than 2 oz of lead). Because lye is caustic, it's important to be precise; using a kitchen scale would be your best bet.

You can add flavor enhancers before adding the vinegar brine mix.

Yes, you can.

Amazon sells food-grade lye.

Almost no mold means there is plenty of mold. Molds cannot always be seen, so any sight of it would be enough to avoid consuming it. Molds can be very toxic, even lethal, to humans. It's best to try to prevent molds/bacteria from growing by using sterile utensils, containers, and jars and preparing the olives in a clean environment.

Yes, they are still fine, just oxidized at the slit. Just as a cut apple turns brown, so do olives. They're perfectly safe to eat.

Mix the olives in sauce and put them in fridge. You can use sour cream, cheese sauce, guacamole, and even chili. Just use the sauce you like.

Probably nothing will happen. But if your olives do turn bad, toss them away and get new olives; only toss if they look or taste bad though.