To understand and buy the best olive oils there is nothing better than knowing how an olive oil mill works. Although they have been modernized a lot in recent decades, it is still a traditional process, from the olive tree to the bottle.
The oil mill is the place where fruits or oilseeds are pressed to extract the oil. For this, three industrial processes are used to produce oil:
Consists of crushing the material, cold or hot, to extract the oil. It is used for vegetable-based oils.
Consists of heating the material to separate the oil from the other components by playing on the differences in boiling temperatures. It is the process of refining petroleum and mineral oils in general.
Consists of producing an oil, called “”””synthetic””””, by reaction using chemical reagents.
Olive oil extraction is the industrial process, carried out in an oil mill, to extract the oil from the drupes of the olive tree.
This process includes two fundamental steps: the preparation of the pulp (crushing) followed by the separation of the oily fraction from the other solid and liquid components (extraction proper).
Olive oil is contained in the lipovacuoles of the mesocarp (pulp) cells. The process therefore involves the extraction of the liquid phase of the cells, the separation of the solid fractions and the separation of the lipid fraction from the aqueous fraction.
The extraction of virgin oil uses exclusively shock, pressure, centrifugation, decantation, filtration, surface tension and mechanical treatment of emulsions. The use of heating is permitted, at moderately high temperatures, in order to increase the oil yield.
Regulations and quality standards require the exclusive use of mechanical methods for the production of Virgin oil.
Thus, oil obtained by the use of chemical and physicochemical methods cannot be identified as virgin oil.
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