What's an efficient way of removing seeds from citrus fruits?

Question

My application is for juicing but I guess it would apply to fruit salads as well.

I have an auger-style crushing juicer and roughly remove seeds I see before ramming the orange/lemon/... pieces down the juicer chute. Unfortunately a few seeds escape detection and as I like to put the pulp back into the juice, I get a few crushed seeds in the juice. Not nice.

Are there any accepted utensils/techniques for removing the seeds beyond probing each piece?

Asked by jontyc

Answer

The best way I've found so far (for juicing) is to just thoroughly squeeze the pieces between thumb and forefinger over the flat part of the juicer chute so the juice flows down the chute and the seeds pop out for removal.

Answered by jontyc

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What juicer is best for leafy greens and vegetables (like carrots)?

Question

There are many juicers out there and not any one juicer is best at juicing everything. I am specifically interested in juicing leafy greens and vegetables like carrots.

Asked by ericgorr

Answer

Hydraulic press juices such as the Norwalk first grind the produce into a pulp, then press the juice out of the pulp. The theory is that malic acid in green apple pulp can release more vitamins and minerals from the other vegetables and fruit. The hydraulic press action squeezes more juice out than other types of juicers. But you're looking at $2500 for a Norwalk.

Macerating juicers would be next, up around the $400+ mark. Gear crushing action, leafy vegetables no problem. Not as much juice extraction as the hydraulic press machines.

Then would come auger style juicers, they easily handle leafy vegetables and wheatgrass, but give a little less juice than the macerating juicers.

Finally the cheapest powered juicers, the centrifugal juicers. I've had trouble using them for leafy greens as there is not enough mass in the leaves to throw them forcefully against the chopping edges. Usually more solid vegetables are required to follow them to force them through.

Carrots are fine in all the juicers.

Answered by jontyc

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How much juice can you get from an orange?

Question

I wanted to make fresh orange juice using a squeezer and wanted to know how many oranges it takes to make an 8oz glass of juice?

Asked by AttilaNYC

Answer

you know better than I do, it depends on the orange and type of orange. My mom, an executive chef, used to say that you'd allow 1-2 lb of oranges for 1 drinkable cup of orange juice.

I really think, that it's highly dependent on the type of orange. I know naval and blood oranges are the juiciest compared to other varieties.

Answered by dassouki

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Will microwaving lemons make them easier or more efficient to juice?

Question

I've heard many people say that microwaving lemons before juicing them causes them to release more juice. I'm skeptical, although not enough so to ask this on Skeptics.

I cannot think of any physical reason why this should be so, and I don't believe it, but I would love to have some kind of response when people say this, or even to be proven wrong!

Asked by James McLeod

Answer

In my 900W microwave it takes 1/2 inch water 1 minute to boil and around 30 seconds to become hand-hot, (I know it may take a bit longer when heating a lemon with the skin acting like an insulator although this effect will be lessened due to the high oil content of the zest). You probably won't 'boil' the lemon however if you did it would produce by far the most juice as the water in the cells would turn into steam and burst creating a semi-juiced lemon before you've even cut it in half.

A cell membrane is made up of many intricate structures, one of which is fatty acid tails. When these melt the cell becomes more 'fluid' and becomes more permeable. This fatty acid melts at around 65 degrees. This would create a lemon that is a lot more flexible and juicy. Cell membrane diagram.

Based on this evidence, I personally would say that microwaving a lemon actually could help with juicing, the effect will be most noticeable when you're juicing a lot of lemons without a juicer.

Answered by Sebiddychef

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Can I put other vegetables in a manual wheat grass juicer?

Question

I'm thinking about buying a wheat grass juicer, but the fact that it only juices one thing gives me pause. Are they adequate at juicing vegetables such as spinach, kale and carrots?

Answer

Some juicers are better than other kinds for different things. A dedicated wheat grass juicers probably isn't going to juice spinach, carrots, and kale well.

A centrifugal juice usually doesn't handle wheatgrass well and in general isn't supposed to be as efficient as some other kinds for leafy greens.

A single-gear or double-gear masticating juicer works great for leafy greens, but isn't supposed to be as efficient for softer fruit.

If you're looking for something that will do wheatgrass, leafy greens, and a variety of other things - consider something like the Omega 8004. Long warranty, easy to clean, and gives good quality juice. If you need to make juice for a lot of people though, it is kind of slow for large quantities.

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Do centrifugal juicers destroy vitamins through friction?

Question

I've read that in a couple of places.

Answer

There are two explanations usually given for why centrifugal juicers lose some of the nutritional value:

• frictional heating, supposedly from the higher speed of the moving parts (although it's never clearly explained where this comes into play, maybe from the juice splatting on the container)
• aeration of the juice (since there's usually more frothing with a centrifugal juicer), which causes the juice to oxidize more and faster.

This page is fairly typical of the explanations.

I'm personally not convinced that either of these is a huge issue, but OTOH I do like the twin-gear masticating juicer we have because it can juice anything and doesn't suffer from those supposed disadvantages of the centrifugal type.

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