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One thing that is not commonly mentioned is that olive oil freezes very well. I typically buy a large 5-liter tin can of olio nuovo in the fall from a known pr
by kinofcain 10y ago
One thing that is not commonly mentioned is that olive oil freezes very well.
I typically buy a large 5-liter tin can of olio nuovo in the fall from a known producer and then freeze all but one liter of it in mason jars, unfreezing throughout the year as needed.
It works really well.
EDIT: It's mentioned in passing in the article but there's only one olive harvest per year (per hemisphere), so there's an advantage to buying all your oil for the year immediately after harvest if you think you can store it better than the store/wholesaler, which is the point of throwing it in the freezer.
- rwmj 10y agoDoes it freeze solid or just become very viscous?
- nextos 10y agoRelated to freezing, I have a very good heuristic to detect fake oils. Since olive oil contains quite a lot of monounsaturated fats, and these become solid with a bit of cold, putting olive oil in the fridge for 12 hours should make solid. I imagine it yields some false positives and negatives, but my own olive oil never fails to become solid, even at room temperature during cold winter days. Nor my neighbour's, or some niche brands I trust. Whereas commercial ones tend to fail...
- elorant 10y agoYou don't need to freeze it. I live in Greece where we buy olive oil in big 17 liter tins and store it for yearly consumption. If you keep it tightly sealed in a dark place it could last at least for a year.
- coldtea 10y ago>I typically buy a large 5-liter tin can of olio nuovo in the fall from a known producer and then freeze all but one liter of it in mason jars, unfreezing throughout the year as needed. It works really well. As a heavy consumer of olive oil, in one of the countries who produces some of the very best (and having produced oil in my family, who owns olive trees), I can tell you that you don't have to freeze it at all. In fact freezing it will damage it (kill several nutrients), and make the thawed oil very quick to spoil. Keep it in the shade, preferably 60oF - 80oF but even 90oF is OK really, in a steel container, and you're done. It remains perfectly fine for 1-2 years or even more.
- kinofcain 10y agoTry it, you'll like it. It's an incredibly easy thing to do, and it's noticeably better after 6 months or so. Also: you can't "kill" nutrients. The biggest risk to oil after light and heat, as I'm sure you know, is oxidation. The lower temperatures drastically reduce the speed of oxidation. If anything the frozen oil will have more nutrients than the room temperature version. Same reason throwing half a bottle of wine in the fridge/freezer works too: The freezer does strip some stuff and causes things to precipitate out, but the overall effect of drastically reducing oxidation is worth the tradeoff.
- csomar 10y agoWhy do you freeze it? I live in one of the world top producer countries of olive oil. (My family has olive trees by the way). We keep it in jars for long periods and it's quite fine.
- kinofcain 10y agoBecause I wondered if it would be better, so I tried it, and it is. It's an easy thing to A/B test, especially with twin-packs of fresh oil at Costco, give it a shot.
- venomsnake 10y agoFreezing it is kinda pointless. Oils store very well - they don't have water, are on the acidic side - so bacteria growth inside them is very hard. Keep it in a cool place, in non reactive container, away from sunlight and oxygen to prevent byproducts and rancidity - it should be fine for long enough. So a mason jar in a pantry is enough.
- kinofcain 10y agoAll of those things are exactly the conditions of a freezer, plus it's really cold. EVOO, and especially olio nuovo are not 100% oil, there's lots of bits of fruit in there that benefit from the lower temperatures.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]