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Originally Posted by bencelest
I am new to this.
Can you apply this also on some other fruits such as citrus and plums?
If I want a citrus that is very sweet, where can you find their Brix score? What magazine or brochure?
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Benny, I have seen brix scores reported in publications from the late 1800's so it is a well-established method of rating sweetness on fruits and foods in general.
When my father and his siblings were kids in the 1920's, they would go out into the citrus groves with their uncle and take brix "scores" from ripening fruit to determine if it was ready for picking. The packing houses did the same on incoming fruit of all types to determine the worthiness of the crop they were about to purchase (or refuse to purchase). Avocado packing houses measure Brix, pH, oil content (percent), and size to determine pricing.
As you are probably aware, many fruits are picked unripe these days and then (depending on the fruit) ripened later either before shipping or after they near their destination. Consequently, the packing house is looking for Brix and other values in the unripe fruit that are known to be transformed into a viable fruit in the ripening process. So nowadays, the Brix+pH values a farmer is looking for in their crop is often far from what you and I would enjoy in a fresh fruit.
Not to worry, Brix and other scores are also tabulated for "ripe" fruit -- both for tree or "natural" ripening and "commercial" ripening. You'll find them scattered around in CRFG publications, Agricultural reports from UC Davis, etc. Note that some fruits like Mango are at their worst when tree ripened, instead they are picked green and ripened in a box on a shelf for a few weeks.
I have only found Brix+pH for a few banana cultivars so far, but it sounds like
High_Brix and possibly others are going to clue us in!
