Master Milling Course Returns to UC Davis

The University of California, Davis Master Miller Certificate Course returns to the Robert Mondavi Institute for its eleventh edi­tion in September.

Forty atten­dees will learn about the inter­na­tional olive oil indus­try, olive oil chem­istry and har­vest­ing and milling best prac­tices. The goal of the pro­gram is to pro­vide tips and guid­ance for olive grow­ers and millers so that they can pro­duce higher qual­ity oil more effi­ciently.

This year’s course will take place over three days instead of four and cost less than it pre­vi­ously has.

“We decided to try a lit­tle bit of a dif­fer­ent for­mat to make it more afford­able for peo­ple,” Dan Flynn, the direc­tor of the UC Davis Olive Center and one of the instruc­tors on the course, told Olive Oil Times. ​“We still think the cost of the course is a good invest­ment and it will pay for itself many times over in higher qual­ity and bet­ter effi­ciency.”

According to a recent sur­vey from the UC Davis Olive Center, 90 per­cent of respon­dents believed that the course mate­r­ial would improve their qual­ity or effi­ciency and 72 per­cent said that the course was ​“very likely” to lead to higher prof­itabil­ity for their own oper­a­tions.

“Without this class, we would not be able to make high-qual­ity, award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil,” Malcolm Bond, a pre­vi­ous attendee and co-owner of Bondolio, told Olive Oil Times. ​“The price of this sem­i­nar is a bar­gain. As an invest­ment, the first year’s crop paid for the class many times over.”

During the three days all of the same mate­r­ial will be cov­ered, but more effi­ciently, accord­ing to Flynn. The first two days will be held in the Silverado Sensory Theater and are more aca­d­e­mic. The last day will include sev­eral field trips to local mills where the atten­dees will see what they have learned being put into prac­tice, and they will have the oppor­tu­nity to net­work and try var­i­ous local prod­ucts, includ­ing olive oil and wine.

“The course cov­ers some of the most advanced approaches to milling avail­able, but also cov­ers the basic fun­da­men­tals,” David Garci-Aguirre, another pre­vi­ous attendee and vice pres­i­dent of oper­a­tions and mas­ter miller at Corto Olives, told Olive Oil Times.

“What I learned imme­di­ately is that a lot of the old milling ​‘lore’ cir­cu­lat­ing the indus­try in California sim­ply wasn’t true or backed by any evi­dence. The course is a huge first step in demys­ti­fy­ing the milling process so we can inno­vate and pro­duce bet­ter oils.”

After a brief overview of the global olive oil sec­tor, the instruc­tors begin with what hap­pens to the olives in the field and how this influ­ences the qual­ity of the oil.

“Before we even get to the pro­cess­ing, there’s talk of the things hap­pen­ing out in the field and how they have an impact on olive oil qual­ity,” Flynn said. ​“So things like the mois­ture con­tent of the fruit are really impor­tant for the grower to deter­mine how much oil they are going to get and also the qual­ity of the oil.”

This is fol­lowed by tips on how to deter­mine the best time to har­vest the olives as well as pro­tect­ing the qual­ity of the fruit between the tree and the crusher.

“You can mea­sure the oil accu­mu­la­tion in the fruit and when that hits a plateau then you are not going to get any more oil accu­mu­lat­ing and at that moment you’re also prob­a­bly going to have your high­est phe­no­lic con­tent,” Flynn said. ​“So the course talks about how the grower can deter­mine when that point is.”

These steps will be fol­lowed by a thor­ough walk­through of the entire milling process, begin­ning with assess­ing the fruit once it arrives in the mill and fin­ish­ing with the best prac­tices for stor­ing and pack­ag­ing the final prod­uct.

“When I started milling and took this class the first time […] I learned that every year the har­vest is dif­fer­ent and that small adjust­ments to pro­cess­ing equip­ment along with har­vest­ing tech­niques has a great effect on pro­duc­ing qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” Larry Treat, the mill man­ager at Lucero Olive Oil, told Olive Oil Times.

The course will also entail a tast­ing ses­sion, but with a twist. The atten­dees will be able to taste olive oil that has been har­vested from fruits where some­thing went wrong along the way. Flynn said that this allows millers to really appre­ci­ate how some small dif­fer­ences have large impacts on fla­vor.

“There will be some tastes that give exam­ples of just how much dif­fer­ence it makes to har­vest the olives in a span of a few weeks on the fla­vor pro­file of the oil using the same vari­ety,” he said.

“We will also taste some oils made with fruit that was dam­aged in some way. In the past, we’ve had fruit that has had frost dam­age [and] what the atten­dees found is the pro­file of that oil will have this sort of stewed fruit qual­ity and it will also oxi­dize very quickly.”

Along with Flynn, Leandro Ravetti and Selina Wang will be among the course instruc­tors. Ravetti is an agri­cul­tural engi­neer with more than 20 years of olive oil pro­duc­tion and research expe­ri­ence. Wang is the research direc­tor of the UC Davis Olive Center and the leader of its olive oil lab.

The course is set to run from September 26 to 28 and reg­is­tra­tion ends September 17. The price is $875 until August 10 and $1075 after­ward. Register online here.

• UC Davis Olive Center