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Old 02-10-2015, 03:14 PM
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CFrance CFrance is offline
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Originally Posted by Villages PL View Post
The brand I bought at Aldi's was Carlini. It didn't say unfiltered. But it did pass the taste test and the fridge test. Often, it got so thick in the fridge it wouldn't pour. I'd have to let it warm up before it would come out of the bottle.



If they don't filter any of their oils, why doesn't it say "unfiltered" on the label? I just read your link and I see why, it's done by "spinning" and then gravity. It seems to me that if you remove all of the pulp, you're removing the best part. It's like the difference between eating a whole orange and drinking orange juice. But for them it's good because they can keep it longer until such time as it is all sold and shipped.



I already bought it from Publix this past Saturday. I didn't say anything because I was waiting to see if it would pass the fridge test but so far it hasn't thickened up. It just shows a slight haziness. Maybe it takes more time? We'll see. It does taste like olive oil but it's not as strong as the Aldi brand. When you taste good (unfiltered) olive oil straight from the spoon, it should be much stronger and somewhat bitter.
If you like the taste of your oil from Aldi's and it passes the test, stick with it. As for the taste, there are many different olive oil tastes, depending on soil conditions, type of oil and country of origin. I use a fruity Olive oil in salad dressings, a more pungent, grassy oil as a finishing oil, and a more bitter finish oil for dipping. But that's just my taste.

As for solidifying in the fridge, this is from an article on same, from the question and answer, as to why fridge test is not reliable.

Paul: No, you can’t. Some olive oils can have as little as 55% monounsaturated fat, and lots of linoleic acid (a polyunsaturated fat), similar to soybean oil: olive oils made from the Arbequina (a popular one for California oils), Chemlali, or Chétoui cultivars (the later two being the dominant ones in Tunisia) are especially prone to low monounsaturated fat levels. Unless they also have a lot of waxes, these oils probably wouldn’t freeze up. And a friend of mine in the olive oil business recently did an experiment where she put a very high-oleic-acid (83%) oil into the fridge, and it didn’t freeze up, for reasons not known: maybe the very low level of saturates, maybe a very low level

Olive oil is a natural product, made from >700 different varieties of olives, each with their own characteristics, grown under different conditions, picked at different levels of ripeness, and processed differently. There are just too many variables affecting waxes, fatty acid ratios, and the distribution of these into triglyceride structure to make the fridge test reliable as a positive or negative screen for authenticity (let alone quality).
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