Excellent lemon/lime squeezer

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/27/excellent-lemonlime-squeezer.html

The best is a vintage wear-ever fruit press.
This:

I picked one up at a thrift shop years ago for $5 and it is the best! You get all the juice, the perfect amount of pulp and some of the citric acid from the peel. The best lemon/lime-aid ever!

Williams and Sonoma had a new one a few years back, granted it was red enamel, but still the exact same shape and function as the wear-ever, but significantly more than $5. :smile:

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Seems to me freshly-squeezed juice is overrated. It’s messy, takes a lot of effort, and doesn’t even necessarily do a very good job of extracting all the juice, all for a product that’s not discernibly better than what you can get more cheaply in-store.

I’ve got one of these juicers and it is better than the glass one you have and the wooden one where you have to attack the inside of the fruit. Also, this is the one Rick Bayless suggests and as I always say, Good enough for Rick Bayless, good enough for me.

Oh, fresh juice for all your small juicing needs is better than the faux.

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Really? I have yet to find a lime juice that tastes anything like fresh squeezed limes. I find bottled lime juice to be missing the acidic bite or the true sourness of fresh squeezed.

I would switch in a heartbeat for cocktails if I could find a bottled lime juice that was any good at all.

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The Chef’n brand has lasted us a lot longer, the cast metal tends to fracture and/or the hinge pin will break. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002XOB0P0/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?qid=1444860813&sr=8-16&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=citrus+juicer&dpPl=1&dpID=41aqs7XOc6L&ref=plSrch

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Really?

I will gladly take a glass of fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit any day over the zombie-juice in a box that is Tropicana or frozen sludge or irradiated shelf stable sugar water!

Edit to add: There’s an entire book about the orange juice industry “Squeezed” - here’s an excerpt:
http://www.culinate.com/books/book_excerpts/squeezed

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I just cut an ‘X’ into the exposed flesh of a half citrus, and press opposite quadrants against each other. This is usually followed up by some seed removal, but it’s remarkably efficient.

Everything you said is wrong.

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i’ve broken more than one pin in citrus squeezers. when it happens, just the the appropriately sized nail, cut to length, and then swedge the end. nothing to it.

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Have you tried True Lime? It’s dried and crystallized lime juice powder. I use it for mojitos when my lime tree is empty. It’s available from Amazon.

Well sure if you don’t mind taking up counter space. You can go much further than that though.

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I have come to realize I have a lot of fruit and vegetables juice extracting devices… I have an electric citrus juicer for when I want to make a lot of citrus juice. Another electric juicer for hard things like apples and carrots and beets. And the above mentioned squeezer. Uh… I did not know I liked juice this much…

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I grew up in a house with a glass one, and it wasn’t unti I was a student I realised the cheap plastic ones have a sharper edge to the ridges and work better. The wood reams are also pretty good.

I’ve always admired the cast press ones but I don’t feel the need to own one.

Your house must be overrun with all sorts of tedious gadgets.

The glass squeezers usually have a circle of raised blobs (or, if you prefer, ‘a palisade of studs’) to retain the seeds:

I use one like this, so I can squeeze into whatever receptacle I desire:

FWIW, I manually uice 20+ limes a week - fear of scurvy ;). I have found the best juicer is the non-painted Rachand Lime Press, Manual -J195. You can buy them from Mexican importers or commercial restaurant supply houses (like this: http://www.dvorsons.com/rachand/juicers.html)

I have broken 50+ other juicers and very few of these. Most of the “pretty” juicers last 1-5 squeezes. My current RaChand is 4 years old. I do give them as gifts :smile:

I could not disagree more. Clearly you do not use much lime juice.

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The lemon and lime juice bought in-store is fine for convenience sake, but it has a tenth of the flavor of freshly-squeezed. When using a decent squeezer, there’s almost no mess, it takes seconds, and costs much less.