Lye Curing Green Olives

[TheCiscoRouter]

I have cured my green olives in lye for 24 hours and have rinsed them for
the past week. Yesterday before brining the olives, I tasted one of the
green olives and found it to be quite bitter yet. I was wondering if I can
start the process again and soak the olives in lye solution without it
causing a harmful chemical reaction with the olives when I am finally able
to brine again.

I would appreciate any help you can offer. I would hate to lose the 70 lbs
of olives I have from this year's crop.

Thank you.

[Kernsdoug]

My experiments with lye-curing olives indicate that the effect of the
lye can be started and stopped by simply cranking the pH of the
soaking solution up or down. So, it seems that one can just
take a taste, decide they didn't brew in the lye long enough, and
dump them into a fresh batch of lye solution for a while. I have,
in fact, done just this, and it seems to work well. Just be careful that
you aren't being fooled by the taste of lye, which is quite nasty,
and might make you think they haven't soaked long enough. If the
pH of the olive is close to neutral, and it tastes bitter, that's a good
indication that it still needs more soaking in lye.

I've also succeeded with milder pH (around 9) for longer time, but I
discovered that if you soak too close to neutral without frequent
brine changes, the olives can be ruined by some kind of moldy stuff. Yech!

May your olives never mold.

- Doug K