Olive Oil going cloudy in the cold

dnme

Is this happening anyone else?

Olive oil goes cloudy and kinda congealed during cold weather. I even noticed the bottles in my supermarket this morning starting to go.

Is there any cure?
Is it still usable?
Does it matter?

snubbleste

It is normal.

Iwannahurl

Sign of good oil, IMO. You won't see those horrible refined oils doing that.

No cure needed -- will disappear at room temperature and above.

neilthefunkeone

Yep it happens.. Its fine to use.. Prob was sitting in the boxes in a cold warehouse..

Stick it in your kitchen and once back to room temp the cloudiness will go.. Perfectly fine to use

RobAMerc

Yep - normal. I get really good cold pressed stuff brought in from local producers in Italy - 0 preservatives 0 additives and it does this all the time. I doubt the cheap stuff does the same.

dnme

I have the oil in my living room where fire is lit every day, it never returns to a clear state.

vibe666

wouldn't fancy staying round yours, it sounds very cold.

its definitely normal though and will happen to any oil if you cool it far enough.

when i can get hold of it, i use biodiesel in my jeep which is made from waste vegetable oil (from chippers etc.) and even though it is a lot thinner than the oil it is made from, you still need to thin it with diesel or a small amount of petrol in really cold conditions as it jellifies if it gets too far below freezing.

calistro

Hi,

The below is a reply I sent to a similar post some months back:

TBH I've never encountered EVOO going off in that amount of time and I would suspect storage conditions would have a lot to do with it. Air, heat and light all effect olive oil and will cause it to go rancid quickly. If you keep your oil in a cool press or a shady part of your kitchen/worktop which keeps a constant temperature there is no reason an opened bottle should not last for at least 3 months and properly re-sealed will last way longer. Cold will effect the olive oil by causing it to congeal and cloud over but it will return to its normal state once it reaches room temperature again. It's possible to freeze olive oil also, you will get the same effect as above.
One tip when buying any quality extra virgin olive oil is to check acidity level, which must be under 1% to qualify as EVOO but you won't find too many producers listing this on their bottles.

And more recently:

Just back last night from this years harvest. The arms are falling off of me now as we have to "milk" the olives from the tree using long poles but worth it in the end. Harvested over a thousand kilos this year and it seems the years of pruning and irrigation are finally paying off although the price per kilo of olives from the co-operatives is very poor at the moment. I've brought back 10 x 1L bottles all organic extra virgin olive oil if anyone is interested you can pm me.