Identify Defective Olive Oil
Identify Defective Olive Oil:
How can you tell superior olive oil from an inferior one, or whether or not your olive oil has gone bad? Here are four tell-tale signs to look out for:
1.Rancidity. If it smells like crayons or putty, tastes like rancid nuts and/or has a greasy mouthfeel, your oil is rancid and should not be used.
2.Fusty flavor. “Fusty” oil occurs when olives sit too long before they’re milled, leading to fermentation in the absence of oxygen. Fusty flavors are incredibly common in olive oil, so many simply think it’s normal. However, your olive oil should not have a fermented smell to it, reminiscent of sweaty socks or swampy vegetation.
To help you discern this particular flavor, look through a batch of Kalamata olives and find one that is brown and mushy, rather than purple or maroon-black and firm. The flavor of the brown, mushy one is the flavor of fusty.
3.Moldy flavor. If your olive oil tastes dusty or musty, it’s probably because it was made from moldy olives, another occasional olive oil defect.
4.Wine or vinegar flavor. If your olive oil tastes like it has undertones of wine and vinegar (or even nail polish), it’s probably because the olives underwent fermentation with oxygen, leading to this sharp, undesirable flavor.
