raebates
Staff member
- 18,217
America's Test Kitchen, the Cook's Illustrated people, just evaluated various juicing methods for limes. Here are the results. The citrus press they picture looks just like ours, except it's green.
Squeezing our way through literally hundreds of limes for Cuban-Style Grill-Roasted Pork and Key Lime Bars, we realized this was an opportune time to determine the most effective method for juicing this little fruit. We tested squeezing by hand against a citrus juicer, in which the lime half is twisted over a ridged, conical head set over a bowl; a simple wooden reamer, which is manually turned inside the fruit; and a citrus squeezer, a device that presses the lime half inside-out to extract the juice.
With the exception of hand squeezing (which was less than half as effective), each method yielded the same amount of juice. But when we factored in ease of use and speed, the squeezer pressed ahead of the competition. An added bonus: All the bits of pulp were contained in the well of the press rather than dropping down into the juice.
Are there any tricks for yielding more juice? We tried rolling the limes on the counter, heating them in the microwave, and poking them with a fork; while these tips may help when squeezing by hand, none made a bit of difference in yield (or ease) when using a hand-held squeezer. In fact, we found cold limes straight out of the refrigerator to yield the most juice--the firm flesh split open more readily than when warm and more pliable.
I definitely plan to share this info with my customers.
Squeezing our way through literally hundreds of limes for Cuban-Style Grill-Roasted Pork and Key Lime Bars, we realized this was an opportune time to determine the most effective method for juicing this little fruit. We tested squeezing by hand against a citrus juicer, in which the lime half is twisted over a ridged, conical head set over a bowl; a simple wooden reamer, which is manually turned inside the fruit; and a citrus squeezer, a device that presses the lime half inside-out to extract the juice.
With the exception of hand squeezing (which was less than half as effective), each method yielded the same amount of juice. But when we factored in ease of use and speed, the squeezer pressed ahead of the competition. An added bonus: All the bits of pulp were contained in the well of the press rather than dropping down into the juice.
Are there any tricks for yielding more juice? We tried rolling the limes on the counter, heating them in the microwave, and poking them with a fork; while these tips may help when squeezing by hand, none made a bit of difference in yield (or ease) when using a hand-held squeezer. In fact, we found cold limes straight out of the refrigerator to yield the most juice--the firm flesh split open more readily than when warm and more pliable.
I definitely plan to share this info with my customers.
That was so not a picture I needed in my head around lunch time... 
