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Experiment to Find the Best Lemonade Recipe

Kyle E. · July 14, 2022 · Leave a Comment

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pitcher of lemonade outside in the sun
Hot Days, Ice Cold Lemonade is the Best!

Finding the BEST lemonade recipe is absolutely a matter of personal preference. Too sweet, too sour, too watery? All possibilities when you find a random recipe on the internet. So, to avoid committing to making someone else’s recipe and being disappointed, here is a simple experiment to find what your family likes best. Once found, that can be your family lemonade recipe for all time!

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Why I Love This Experiment?

Ever look for a long form activity which will keep your kids attention? This covered about half a day of on and off activity. Shopping for the ingredients, tasting the ingredients, writing it all down, etc. My hyper active 6 year old was enamoured with the process of creating something from scratch and was proud of the result. It worked so well, I hope others will try our experiment to find their best Lemonade Recipe.

Ingredients & Equipment

Ingredients

  • Lemons: At our store, we had three types of lemons to choose from, small, large, and Meyer lemons. We chose to go with the small and large lemons, excluding the Meyer lemons due to cost. I would hate for the best lemonade to come from the most costly lemons, so we kept it simple.
  • Sweetener: We looked through a few lemonade recipes and settled on making a simple syrup for the sweetener. This had a few added bonuses: we were sure that the sugar was dissolved into the lemonade and we could make a mini experiment out of the simple syrup preparation. You can find that HERE!

Equipment

  • Lemon Squeezer: Because you need every last drop of juice from those lemons, I suggest investing in a lemon squeezer to make the job easier. An orange juicer would also work, and would probably be doable for the kids.
  • Pitcher: You need somewhere to put the finished product!
  • Measuring spoons: This experiment uses small amounts of combined ingredients to play with the flavors. Combining and tasting teaspoons of liquid is faster and less wasteful than cups of lemonade.

The Lemonade Experiment

  1. Make the simple syrup. This is simply combining 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and add heat. You don’t need to actually boil it, our dissolved with a quick stir around 100*F.
  2. Squeeze your lemons. Using a lemon juicer is key here to get the most juice out of each lemon. I think it was 4 large lemons for 1 cup of lemon juice.
  3. Now that you have lemon juice and simple syrup, start combing them and trying different ratios. I combined tablespoons of each to make it quick and accurate, and we didn’t use a bunch of materials experimenting. The fun is in tasting each step, so here is the options we used.
    1. Straight lemon juice (take a picture or video, its hilarious)
    2. Straight syrup
    3. 1:1 lemon to syrup
    4. 1:2 lemon to syrup (this was our golden ratio)
    5. 1:3 lemon to syrup
    6. 1:4 lemon to syrup
    7. 2:1 lemon to syrup
    8. 3:1 lemon to syrup
  4. Take notes on each of the above as you taste them. Find which one you like best.
  5. Add portions of water in a 1:1 with everything else. So I added tablespoons of water to our preferred ratio until it was perfect.
  6. Spoiler: Our perfect ratio was 1:1.5:3 lemon:syrup:water. So if you added a cup of lemon juice, add two cups of simple syrup, and three cups of water.
  7. Add ice and enjoy your new family lemonade recipe.
pitcher of lemonade outside in the sun

Science Based Lemonade Recipe

Kyle E.
Scientifically proven by a six year old to be the best lemonade ever.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes mins
Total Time 30 minutes mins
Course Drinks
Cuisine American
Servings 12 4 oz servings
Calories 135 kcal

Equipment

  • Lemon Juicer
  • Cutting Board
  • Pitcher
  • measuring spoons
  • Liquid Measuring Cup

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup White Sugar
  • 1 cup Water
  • 6 Large Lemons
  • 1 pinch Salt
  • Ice for Serving

Instructions
 

  • Combine 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water in a saucepan. Heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved, shouldn't take long Set aside to cool.
    1 cup White Sugar, 1 cup Water
  • Juice the lemons by your preferred method. Roll them on the counter to increase juice yield.
    6 Large Lemons
  • Combine one cup of lemon juice with the simple syrup (around 1.5 cups). Stir to combine, and then dilute with three cups of water. Add the pinch of salt and stir again. Adjust with extra lemon juice or water to taste.
    1 pinch Salt, 1 cup Water
  • Add a bunch of ice and serve ice cold. The ice will dilute the lemonade further as it melts.
    Ice for Serving

Nutrition

Serving: 4ozCalories: 135kcalSodium: 35mgSugar: 33g
Keyword Drinks, Experiment, Lemonade, Summer
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Home » ETC » Experiment to Find the Best Lemonade Recipe

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Cooking, Baking, and Preparing meals for a family is always an adventure. Join us as we learn to make tasty food to share. Read More…

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