Lemonade for a crowd

[TPO]

I'll be making lemonade for about a hundred people next month. It has to be organic, so my choices are squeezing a lot of organic lemons or using organic lemon juice from a jar. Obviously, the lemon juice from a jar would be easier and cheaper, but would we be sacrificing too much? The lemonade is for a nonprofit fundraising event, so if it doesn't taste good, people won't buy it. Does anyone have any experience -- good or bad -- with making lemonade from purchased lemon juice?

[touaregsand]

Purchased lemon juice is really bad. I like the lemonade from hot dog on a stick. They slice a lemon in half and then use some pumping thingamajig, it releases the oils from the peel into the lemonade. It's really fragrant.

Cut a bunch of lemons in half and smash away. Lots of sugar, ice and of course water. Voila!

I don't know where you are or what type of fundraising event it is. In LA at an event like this depending on the crowd $3-$5 a glass would work. They won't complain if the lemonade is really good. An experiment to try to cut costs (thus adding more to the fund) is to cut the fresh squeeze with the packaged stuff. The method I describe above add so much yummy lemon oil fragrance, that I don't think too many people will notice. But then again I've never tried the packaged lemon juice,

Edited March 4, 2005 by touaregsand (log)

[petite tête de chou]

I don't have any experience with bottled, organic lemon juice. Perhaps it's better than the norm? The norm is usually stale, overtly acidic and tastes of chemicals.

Whatever you decide to do, I would include lots of thinly sliced lemons in the presentation, either in the individual cups/glasses and/or the serving dish.

But...if you have the arm power and a good juicing method...do it.

Nothing compares to freshly squeezed lemons.

Also, your sugar source? I believe that a cane sugar syrup is the best.

[Shalmanese]

Most food processors come with a juicer attachment, this would be far easier than juicing by hand.

Heres how I've seen it done. Cut up all your lemons and place in 2 piles, cut side down on both sides of the juicer.

Place a clean garbage bin underneath the juicer, in between your feet.

Take a lemon with the left hand, juice it, throw it in the bin, take a lemon with the right hand, do the same and repeat. If you get the rhythm down, you can easily do a lemon half every 3 seconds or so.

I would also bruise a bunch or 2 of mint leaves and throw them in and let steep for at least 3 hours as well.

[helenjp]

lemonade recipe with citric acid and tartaric acid. This is the type of lemonade my family used to make, and we used to serve it diluted with 1-2 parts water: 1 part lemonade (depends a little on how much ice you plan to add).

It can be made in advance. I don't boil the lemon rind, just add them to the bowl with and pour boiling water directly onto the rinds, and otherwise proceed as the recipe directs.

[jerkhouse]

Have you thought about using a lime/lemon press? I keep one around for making margaritas, but sometimes I use it on lemons; but not all lemons are small enough to fit in it. I have seen specific lemon presses at the store, though, that look like they're designed bigger to accomodate lemons. I think a press gets pretty much all the juice out of the fruit, I think it probably gets more out than a "reamer" style juicer. Anyway, it sounds like its going to be quite a bit of work no matter how you do it, but that's my suggestion.

Edited March 4, 2005 by jerkhouse (log)

[fifi]

If you don't have a power attachment of some kind, I think these simple presses are about as good as they get. (And I have tried just about everything.) The yellow one is what you want for normal lemons. The green one is great for the little key limes, those annoying little creatures that taste so good. Now that I have these, I am prone to make lemon or limeade on a whim. It would take some effort to do that many lemons but if it is a one time deal, it might be a better solution than investing in a juicer or attachment. You can also find them a lot cheaper in a Latin American market. (BTW, you put the lemon in the bottom cup cut side down. It seems backwards but that is how it works.)

[Andrew Fenton]

I agree that citrus presses work great for juicing a few lemons (though if I were to make it for a crowd, I'd definitely invest in a power tool.) But I'm fascinated by the citrus trumpet also advertised on the W-S website. It looks like something from Dr. Seuss: does this thing work? What would you use it for?

[jerkhouse]

I agree that citrus presses work great for juicing a few lemons (though if I were to make it for a crowd, I'd definitely invest in a power tool.)  But I'm fascinated by the citrus trumpet also advertised on the W-S website.  It looks like something from Dr. Seuss: does this thing work?  What would you use it for?

←

I think I got a cheap version of the lemon trumpet in a bag of sunkist lemons I got a few months ago. I took a picture of it but I can't figure out how to post it. Anyway, it's basically just a spout that screws into the lemon and you squeeze and it comes out of the spout. I thought it sucked because you can't really squeeze it that well because the screw in portion of the spout is all inside the lemon and gets in the way of the squeezing. The sunkist one also had a little flip top cap that ostensibly sealed it back up when you were done, but usually the lemon was so beat up where it met the spout that it didn't really matter.

[TPO]

Thanks so much for all this valuable advice!

I don't have a citrus juice attachment for my Kitchenaid, but I have been looking for an excuse to buy one. So I think I'll get one if we go with real lemons. Although the presses look great too, especially since I also am a margarita drinker.

Does anyone know if how far ahead of time I can squeeze the lemons? Or if I could freeze the juice? The time it takes to squeeze the lemons wouldn't be as much of a big deal if I could do it a few days ahead of time. helenjp's recipe looked great and said it could be made in advace, so maybe there is hope that I won't be juicing lemons at the last minute.

I looked into the lemon juice, and the stuff they sell in the grocery stores is lemon juice from concentrate whereas the organic lemon juice at the natural foods store is not from concentrate and has no chemicals or additives. I may pick some up and try making lemonade with it just for kicks, adding some fresh lemon rind to freshen the flavor. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Shalmanese]

I leave Lemon juice at least overnight to let the mint properly steep but I haven't seen any significant deterioation over 2 days. I've never kept it for long than that so I wouldn't know. I would say the best thing to do would be to make it the night before.

[jerkhouse]

I don't see why you couldn't make batches and freeze them. I would think that any flavor loss would be minimal, and would likely be impossible to detect after you add the fresh juice at the end when you make your last or second to last batch.

Edited March 5, 2005 by jerkhouse (log)

[jaynesb]

Cook's Illustrated did a piece about making fresh lemonade. Some of the more interesting suggestions involved mashing halved lemons with sugar a little to get some of the lemon oil flavor. But you can't mash too much or the flavor turns bitter.

Also, it was possible to come up with a kind of a lemon/sugar concentrate liquid that could be diluted or poured over ice as needed. Tremendous storage advantages to this approach.

I didn't make huge batches but found that my potato ricer was a good squeezer.

I have one of the Kitchen-Aid (stand-mixer) juicer attachments and remember reading that most folks set aside that strainer part of it because it filled up too fast. They did their own straining at the end. I found it a bit messy to use and it would have been nice to have something under my hand as I held onto the fruit.

Good luck however you go about this.

jayne

[helenjp]

lemon/sugar concentrate liquid that could be diluted

That's what the recipe I listed upthread is (not wanting to nag, because there's lemonade and lemonade and to each his or her own, but there are times when it certainly comes in handy to be able to add anything from 2 to 4 parts water to your lemonade mix.)

[lexy]

I remember reading somewhere that boiling lemons quickly before juicing them results in a lot more juice. Since I'm lazy, I tossed one in the microwave until it felt warm last time I was juicing a lemon. I didn't objectively compare the juice yield to a cold lemon, but it seemed like I was getting a lot more juice. Anyway, to maximize your juice yield, you might try this, or at least leave the lemons out overnight to let them warm up some.

[Andrew Fenton]

lemonade recipe with citric acid and tartaric acid. This is the type of lemonade my family used to make, and we used to serve it diluted with 1-2 parts water: 1 part lemonade (depends a little on how much ice you plan to add).

As you say, dilutable is good. (That's what I do in summertime, when I buy lemons for like 10/$1 and drink lemonade all summer: just keep lemon juice + sugar syrup in the fridge.) But what do the citric and tartaric acids do?

Edited March 7, 2005 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[helenjp]

what do the citric and tartaric acids do?

Since the lemonade is diluted, the citric acid and the tartaric acid increase the sourness. I usually make it with tartaric acid but not citric acid (feel that the stronger sourness of the citric acid overpowers the lemon a little).

Another reason for adding extra sourness is to balance the faint bitterness that the fragrant lemon peel adds.

Curiously, if you add lots of lemon balm, the sharp flavor of the lemonade disappears almost entirely. Not sure what component of the lemon balm is responsible for that.

Citric acid and tartaric acid are mildly preservative, but I don't know whether they have a measurable effect in this case (but since lemon juice can go off surprisingly quickly, it could be worth leaving them in the recipe).

[Andrew Fenton]

what do the citric and tartaric acids do?

Since the lemonade is diluted, the citric acid and the tartaric acid increase the sourness. I usually make it with tartaric acid but not citric acid (feel that the stronger sourness of the citric acid overpowers the lemon a little).

Interesting, and thanks for the explanation. I've never had any problem with the lemonade being insufficiently sour: I like it sour, but just use less sugar. I suppose pimping it up with acid would be a good way to stretch the lemon juice.