Citrus Press

Usage

Juicing limes, lemons and small oranges to order. A press extracts more juice with less effort than a reamer and strains the pips as it goes, which is why it lives on the counter rather than in a drawer.

Cut Side Down

The counterintuitive bit, and the one almost everybody gets wrong first time: the fruit goes in cut face down, against the perforated plate.

It looks backwards. What happens is that the press turns the half completely inside out, and in doing so it squeezes from the peel side, forcing juice out through the flesh and the holes. Put the fruit in cut side up and you are pressing juice against solid metal, which extracts perhaps half as much and takes twice the effort.

The peel also acts as a barrier, so far less pith and bitterness comes through than a reamer produces. That is why press juice tastes cleaner as well as arriving faster.

Getting the Yield

Two things double what a lime gives up, and both are free.

Roll it firmly under your palm on the counter first. That ruptures the juice sacs inside without breaking the skin, so the fruit is already partly broken down before it reaches the press. Then use it at room temperature: cold juice is more viscous and stays in the fruit.

A lime that has been in the fridge and gone straight into a press might give 15ml. The same lime rolled and warmed gives closer to 25ml, which across a round of four drinks is the difference between buying six limes and buying ten.

Why Fresh Matters So Much

Citrus juice begins to change within about fifteen minutes of being squeezed, and bottled juice has changed a great deal more than that.

Fresh lime is bright, sharp and slightly bitter from the oils in the peel. Pasteurised bottled lime is flatter, sweeter and carries a cooked note, and most brands add preservative that reads as faintly metallic. In a Daiquiri or a Margarita, three ingredients with nowhere to hide, the difference is not subtle.

That is why the press does more for a home bar than almost anything else at the price. A better gin improves a drink slightly. Fresh juice instead of bottled improves it enormously.

Choosing One

Size to the fruit. A lime press is too small for lemons, and using a lemon press for limes wastes juice around the edges. Most homes want the middle size, usually sold as a lemon press, which handles both.

Enamel-coated aluminium is the standard and perfectly good; the coating does chip over time and the exposed metal reacts slightly with acid. Solid stainless or cast alloy costs more and lasts indefinitely.

Check the hinge. That is where cheap presses fail, usually by splaying under load, and a press with any play in the hinge will never invert the fruit properly.

What to Look For

• Stainless, or sound enamel: citrus strips cheap coatings and bare aluminium taints
• A solid hinge with no play
• Holes that pass juice and hold seeds
• Lemon capacity if you buy only one

Professional Tips

• Cut side DOWN. The fruit inverts and the press does the work.
• Roll the fruit under your palm first: it doubles the yield.
• Room temperature juices better than fridge cold.
• Rinse straight away. Dried citrus pulp sets like glue.

Specifications