how long does fresh lime juice

keep? and should it be kept in the refrig or on the counter?

I wouldn't keep it for more than three or four days in the fridge, you can also freeze it into cubes for use later.

yipes...time to try out the new juicer.

Lime juice will keep uncovered for three or four hours (possibly more, but it is going to loose a lot). According to some authorities on the subject, and I mean people that actually went to school for this kind of stuff, say that more than four hours unrefrigerated and you are inviting something nasty to get into the juice. (cue in Alton Browns little germ models)

Refrigerated you have a day or more, well actually four or five, but you loose a lot of the 'freshness' that way. What helps is if you put plastic wrap over the juice and push it down so it is actually touching the juice. The key is to keep as much air away from it as possible since the process of oxidation is what kills the fresh flavors.

Frozen you can keep it for three or four months, but you still want to keep it in as small a container as possible to keep the air away from it. Freezeing is OK, but you loose a whole lot of the freshness during the thaw.

The best way to keep lime juice is in its original contianer (the lime) until ready to use. I have had some luck freezing the whole limes and then thawing the day before I need them. I say some luck because they don't look pretty after the thaw, kind of brownish on the outside.... But it was experimental because we can get limes year-round. Not cheap all year, but available all year.

If you really need to store lime juice I would recommend you seek out some of the bottled options since most have been pasteurized or generally processed for longer storage. It may not be as fresh as fresh, but when you need lime you can't really sub anything else.....

aack. remember I said I had a mai tai, then a painkiller?...well I forgot the juice out on the counter all night. :(

glad you posted because I was all set to use it in tonight's cocktails. Just called the Mr. and asked him to pick up some fresh limes a I'd rather discard my freshly squeezed albeit possibly germy juice.

Guess I won't be picking up any more 10# bags at Costco! Since the new juicer is so handy I'll be breaking it out each weekend.

Won't be too much of a hassle though, especially since I bet it would work a wee bit better since it was only after I'd juiced the whole bag (remember that mai tai and painkiller?) and took it apart for cleaning that I realized I had'nt taken out the cardboard insert that would've made applying less english possible. :o

Ok I took a couple of food preservation courses when I had a huge crop of cucumbers and peaches to deal with...

To add to everyone else's helpful tips, here are some shelf life times for freshly-squeezed, unpasteurized lime juice:

4 hours at room temperature (68-72F)in a covered container - after 4 hours, potentially unhealthy levels of yeast and mold spores may be present.

As Chip and Andy mentioned, contact with air (O2) causes the lime juice to get stale, so keep it covered. I really like the idea of puting plastic over the juice and I'm going to have to try it...

72 hours at refrigerated temperature (40F) in a covered container. After 72 hours, the juice will lose freshness, but it is still usable in cooking recipes for 2 more days.

Lime juice frozen immediately after squeezing is good one month. Thaw in refrigerator for best quality. Freeze lime juice in ice cube trays and transfer frozen cubes to airtight bags, or freeze in containers with 1/2" headspace (air between the top of the container and the juice). You have to leave the space there for expansion, otherwise the juice will push the top off.

A few more things: whole limes keep for about 1 week at room temperature and one month refrigerated. Don't leave them in the sun on the counter which can compromise the quality.

Also check with your County Extension office for food preservation info for better authority than mine. They usually have all sorts of guides on canning, freezing and storing fresh and prepared produce.

Hope this helps!

[ Edited by: Martiki-bird 2007-08-19 09:25 ]

Great info...thank folks. I have been using the bottled lime juice, but may get crazy and do the real thing sometime. :drink:

Here is some lime info from a previous post. There is info about lime care at the bottom that I obtained a while back from lime (and other produce) growers/importers/packers/suppliers.

Added later 'cause haste makes waste and I was in a hurry. The preceding, obviously, was about the limes before juicing.

You can usually tell by its aromatic metamorphosis (what I call a complete change in aroma) when lime juice has gone bad. This happens even before it becomes unhealthy. After about an hour of exposure to the air, especially, at room temperature, it no longer smells the way it does at the time that it's squeezed. It undergoes a pungent transformation that isn't particularly foul until you mix it into any drink, including limeade.

When the Mai Tai was becoming the rage at TV establishments, VJB Jr saw the need to pre-mix some of its ingredients. No doubt, for reasons mentioned in this thread, lime juice was not allowed to be part of the pre-mix solution. Here's a quote from the TV site:

The popularity of the Mai Tai demanded that production on the bars be streamlined. Each individual bar was instructed to pre-mix the Curacao, Orgeat and Rock Candy Syrup in appropriate amounts.

If he had added lime juice to the pre-mix, after an hour or so from mixing, the Mai Tais would have been rendered undrinkable.

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2007-08-21 07:09 ]

Get to know Koka Nut.
He has about a billion on his tree right now.

OK only 123 million but... a lot.

That jerk.
I've had my key lime tree 2 years longer and it hasn't given me one lime yet.

The "Lime Cubes" work pretty good, btw and lasted for me a few months.
They worked ok in a pinch for sure and were better than the bottled stuff.

On 2007-08-20 10:25, pablus wrote:

Get to know Koka Nut.
He has about a billion on his tree right now.

OK only 123 million but... a lot.

That jerk.
I've had my key lime tree 2 years longer and it hasn't given me one lime yet.

The "Lime Cubes" work pretty good, btw and lasted for me a few months.
They worked ok in a pinch for sure and were better than the bottled stuff.

Have you compared the pH of the soils around your trees? Here's an excerpt from the Mexican lime link inside the link in my preceding post:

Soil

The oolitic limestone of the Florida Keys seems perfectly acceptable to the Mexican lime. The tree grows reasonably well in a variety of other soils. In sandy locations on the Florida mainland, best growth is achieved by the periodic addition of lime to raise the pH. Other-wise there will be a lighter crop of fruits; they will be larger than normal with thicker peel and less juice.

Maybe his soil has the right pH and yours does not.

I know it's a scary thought but the 99 Cent Only store near me sells fresh produce too. Normally I would be a bit leary of buying produce from a store that specializes in last year's merchandise (or older) but they sell bags of limes for a buck, both the small Key limes and the bigger Mexican limes. I picked up a few bags of the large limes today and I'm going to try freezing some lime juice cubes. A bag has about 12-13 limes and yields about 1 1/2 cups of juice. Not bad for a buck, they seemed to be fresh.

Edit - So I froze the juice in ice cube trays (1/2 ounce each), wrapped them in Saran Wrap to keep them from sticking to each other, and put them in the freezer in a ziplock bag. We'll see how that works out. I was tempted to try freezing some wedges for garnishes but I saw above that Chip said they're not pretty when they thaw.

Be good to yourself and to the ones you love

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2011-11-13 08:24 ]

Not sure if you guys have read this post online yet, but I felt they did some really interesting things in testing the freshest=bestest ideas. Do check it out.

http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/10/01/fresh-lime-juice-wtf/

I was at this seminar. Very interesting stuff. Dave Arnold is definitely a crazy, inspired mad-scientist when it comes to things like this. I definitely suggest you never pass up an opportunity to catch the guy.

Mr. Martin Cate was telling me that tests show a significant change in juices (lime juice included) just 2 hours after squeezing. The above mentioned taste test shows the same. If you squeeze juice in the morning or yesterday, the drink you make will not be the same as the drink made with the juice squeezed just now.

It would be up to the taster whether this is better or worse tasting, but I can assure you, the masters prefered freshly squeezed. At the Mai-Kai, back in the day, they did not prep the juices at noon. They had Cuban staff in a shed behind the main building (to keep the smell and flies away from guests) squeezing the juices fresh all night long. I can only assume this was also done at DtB as the Mai-Kai was built on the foundational traditions of DtB. In an interview I did recently with the founder of the Mai-Kai who got his start at DtB, it was argued that unless you are squeezing the juice that way, then you are not using what they called fresh squeezed juices. It was an imitation of the original DtB drink that was inferior.

Well, at least I used the right juicer :lol: Limes are readily available in my area year-round. But I drink very seldom and usually on a whim. If I suddenly decide I want an excuse to use up a paper umbrella, the fresh limes are in town 10 miles away. The RealLime juice is just plain nasty so fresh frozen is going to have to be OK for me :D