Adjustment of olive fruit temperature before grinding for olive oil extraction. Experimental study and pilot plant trials

Harvesting at high temperatures and bulk transport can negatively influence the quality of olives and lead to undesirable alterations in the extracted oil. Cooling the fruit in the field would be the most logical solution, but it means that the olives arrive too cold at the mill for immediate processing. In this work, the use of warm water in the washing tub to warm up the fruit before grinding instead of flash heat treatment on the paste was assessed in two experiments. In the first one, at the laboratory level, the temperature after milling was determined in three olive cultivars, previously stored at 5 or 10 °C, and then submerged at different water temperatures (25, 30, and 35 °C) for 15, 30, 45, and 60 s. In the second one, two batches of olives were cooled in the field at 5 °C and then conditioned with washing water to obtain a paste at the entrance of the pilot plant malaxer at 27 °C. The temperature of the olives was measured at five points from the discharging up to their entering, as paste, into the malaxer. The results demonstrated the feasibility of the method as the temperature of the ground olives was kept at the desired temperature (28 ± 1 °C). The trials highlight the potential for automating an even more precise adjustment of the temperature of the olives before milling once the washing tub is equipped with a safe heating system