5 votes

How long do homemade olives stay safe?

Posted by rosco
Tags: olives, food safety, homemade, botulism, ask.advice

Hey Tildes food crew!

I made some olives 3 years ago and kind of a "set it and forget it" situation. And well, I forgot them for too long. It's been 3 years now and I've only found them because I was looking for jars for a new batch. I opened them up and didn't hear any "hiss", they smell good, there is no sign of mold (on the 2 good ones I'm keeping, we did lose one jar to mold), and I did a small taste test and they tasted olive-y and good. They have been in a cupboard for the entire time and I'm happy to share the recipes if that is helpful. The olives in each were slit to facilitate faster edibility. They both have a 5% brine, one with red wine vinegar and the other with balsamic vinegar.

I know we have quite a few crafty, homesteady, foody folks here and would appreciate any advice you can provide! Just making sure they are still safe to eat! Thanks!

3 comments

  1. [2]
    fxgn
    (edited )
    Link
    Don't have any experience with making olives, but https://stilltasty.com is a pretty good resource and it gives the best before date for an open can of commercially canned olives as 18-24 months...

    Don't have any experience with making olives, but https://stilltasty.com is a pretty good resource and it gives the best before date for an open can of commercially canned olives as 18-24 months and for deli counter olives in oil as 1-2 months.

    Also see FoodKeeper by USDA - it only suggests storing olive bar olives for 2 weeks.

    They also all assume storage in the fridge, and you say your jar was just standing in the cupboard, so it's probably less than that.

    However, those are estimates for the best quality, and the StillTasty page also says this:

    The storage time shown for opened olives is for best quality only - after that, the olives' texture, color or flavor may change, but in most cases, they will still be safe to consume if they have been kept continuously refrigerated, the jar or can is undamaged, and there are no signs of spoilage (see below).

    How can you tell if opened olives are bad or spoiled? The best way is to smell and look at the olives: if the olives develop an off odor, flavor or appearance, or if mold appears, they should be discarded.

    Discard all olives from cans or bottles that are leaking, rusting, bulging or severely dented.

    So I'm guessing it's very much a "at your own risk" situation. They're way past the suggested best before date, especially since you didn't store them in the fridge - and you did find mold in one of the cans, which means the time and conditions were clearly enough for it to develop. But you also say you didn't find anything strange in the other cans, so they may be safe to eat for now. I wouldn't - but I'm also much more paranoid about food safety than most people out there.

    Edit: turns out StillTasty has an email address for food safety questions, so maybe you can ask them as well! Seems like they actually answer them

    1. SteeeveTheSteve
      Link Parent
      The 2 weeks is for basically tossing the olives in a fridge isn't it? (no vinegar or brine)

      The 2 weeks is for basically tossing the olives in a fridge isn't it? (no vinegar or brine)

  2. SteeeveTheSteve
    Link
    "At your own risk" is probably the proper response. Canned olives should last 1.5 years. Personally, the use of vinegar reduces the risk enough for me. I'd be more worried they'd taste like...

    "At your own risk" is probably the proper response. Canned olives should last 1.5 years. Personally, the use of vinegar reduces the risk enough for me. I'd be more worried they'd taste like cardboard since some things lose their flavor after a few years.

    I'm a bit curious how the mold grew. Were the olives not completely covered, the vinegar too watered down, or was the mold just on the surface of the vinegar?