It’s common knowledge that juicing citrus yields more liquid if the fruit is warm. Really? Is it worth it to spend the extra time leaving it on the counter for a couple of hours or microwaving it? Well, I decided to test it out.
First, I weighed every lime in the 5-pound bag of limes from Costco. Out of the entire bag, I found only three sets of limes weighing exactly the same amount. 3 1/8, 4, and 4 7/8 ounces. I put matching stickers on the pairs of limes.
I put one of each of those pairs in the refrigerator and left the other at room temperature. The rest of the bag also went back into the refrigerator. Twenty-four hours later I weighed the limes again. Some of the limes in the refrigerator weighed up to an ounce less than the day before, ranging from 79% to 119% of the original weight. The limes at room temperature were more consistent and ranged from 87% to 100% of their original weight. Yes, the scale isn’t perfect, but I did weigh the limes several times wondering how the weights could be so different in just 24 hours.
Then I juiced the six limes. The results were all over the board. The cold ones averaged a yield of 43%, while the room temperature ones averaged 38%. What, the cold limes did better than the room temperature ones? When I looked at the raw data, however, there was no rhyme or reason to the amount of juice produced. So, there is no need to leave limes at room temperature. It just doesn’t make a positive difference.
I moved on to the second part of the experiment. Will limes heated in the microwave produce more juice? The results were fascinating. I weighed each lime directly out of the refrigerator and again after it was microwaved. In every case, the limes weighed exactly the same amount. Okay, my trust in my scale was renewed! I juiced some limes cold, then after 10 seconds in the microwave, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and 1 minute.
The cold limes produced the lowest yield out of all the limes in this experiment. The limes microwaved for 20 seconds yielded the most juice. When the limes were microwaved for 30 seconds or 1 minute, the pulp started breaking down, so the liquid had to be strained.
A word of caution, the limes microwaved for 1 minute sprayed hot juice when they were cut. Obviously, 1 minute was too long.
To be honest, I was quite surprised by the results, but at least I know. Microwave your citrus fruits for 20 seconds in order to yield about 4% more juice per lime. In the future, I probably won’t bother microwaving them, but at least I know that I don’t have to bring them to room temperature.
As always, happy cooking and eating!
