This is quick and inexpensive way to make cocktail lime juice with only a few limes. It does require a couple ingredients you may not have on hand, but they don’t cost much and are easily available on line. This recipe will yield about 750ml of juice.
Ingredients
- 4 Limes – zested
- ~30 g Citric acid – want 80% of lime zest weight
- ~8 g Malic acid – want 20% of lime zest weight
- ~650 g Water – want 15 times the zest weight
- Juice from limes
Process
- Mise en Place: measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
- Zest limes and weigh the zests. Set peeled limes aside for later.
- Measure the amount of acid needed based on zest weight and add to zests
- The 80:20 ratio of citric to malic acid based on zest weight yields a 1:1 ratio of zest to acid.
- Place zests in a container sprinkle acid on top.
- Shake container to coat zests with acid.
- Put in fridge for two hours to let the acid leach oils form the zests.
- Pour contents of container into blender (or pitcher if you use a hand blender)
- Add water and squeeze in lime juice.
- Blend until finely pureed, then strain using a cheese cloth to remove solids.
- Pour strained liquid into a 750 ml bottle.
- The acids will keep the lime juice fresh in the fridge for a couple of weeks.
Note 1: The citric and malic acid ratios to zest weight is a matter of personal taste and you can use more or less based on your preference. The same holds for the amount of water you add.
Note 2: Depending on the cocktails you intend to make with this lime sour mix, you can opt not to strain the puree. For example, some folks like a Margarita on the rocks with the pulp of the puree. If that’s the end game, be careful when you zest the limes to avoid getting of the soft pulp between skin and fruit.
