Post #759082 by mikehooker on Sat, Feb 13, 2016 3:39 PM

I spotted Florida white's at the local upscale grocer a couple weeks ago:

I bought two and used them pretty quickly, returned to the store less than a week later and they only had 8 fruits in the bin! I assumed it was the end of their supply and erroneously only grabbed four of them, thinking that would tide me over since there's no way I'd get through 8 before they spoiled. Of course I hadn't considered the possibility of squeezing and freezing as a couple people have pointed out here. I went back again and they were of course all gone. I did see a small selection of Melogold's which I disregarded but now reading through this thread realize they are another variety of white and I should have grabbed some of those. I'm sure they are all gone as well.

Now that I got my misfortunes/frustrations out of the way, I wanted to discuss some juice matters. I've tried several varieties of fresh, bottled and cartoned juices. Those fresh squeezed Florida whites are hands down my favorite. Despite what I've read about pinks and reds being sweeter, I find those varieties to be much more bitter than the Florida whites. The whites to me taste similar to an orange with mild bitter/sour/lemony notes. It's a fruit I'd actually eat on it's own whereas the Texas reds to me are pretty nasty. Am I crazy here? Are these Florida whites to be considered oro blanco or is that a different variety? Irregardless, I find these Florida whites to work better in drinks that call for grapefruit than any other fresh fruit or packaged juice I've bought so I'm sad that my supply is super limited. This brings me to my next quandary...

I normally keep my fruits out at room temperature and use them before they turn, but I put my extra grapefruits in the fridge to prolong their life since I don't know how quickly I want to go through them yet. Uncut, can I expect a few weeks of freshness? If I just want to make one drink that calls for a small amount of grapefruit juice, is it better to just cut out a couple slivers to juice, then put the remaining cut open fruit in a bag to store in the fridge, or should I go ahead and juice and bottle the remainder? I'm thinking if I just put the cut fruit back in the fridge, it may dry out and lose flavor quicker. Is there any logic in that? I recently did the opposite, squeezing a whole grapefruit to see how much juice one would produce (just over 5 ounces), used what I needed for a Navy Grog and stored the rest in the fridge. After two days the squeezed/bottled juice was still fragrant and tasty, which differs from stored lime juice. As an example, when I'm entertaining guests I'll pre-squeeze a crap ton of limes and some times end up with excess juice that I refrigerate. Usually within a day, and especially two, the juice is flavorless. It appears grapefruit can hang a little longer but when is the turning point?

Lastly, in an effort to preserve juice for the off season, a couple people have mentioned putting the juice in ice trays then popping the frozen cubes out and putting them in plastic baggies. What kind of trays do you guys use?

I think that's all I got for now. It's about time to make a drink...