We wrote an article recently on our
website about how to determine the ripeness of a watermelon. I got a lot of
comments, I got a lot of emails, Facebook messages, about how other people
determine the ripeness of watermelons, and one unorthodox way made me wonder
if any of the traditional ways actually worked. A lot of people wrote in telling
about a straw method. They would get a piece of straw, and you put it on the
watermelon, and if it spins—the more it spins, the more ripe the watermelon is
believed to be. So I just had to test this out for myself, along with other
traditional methods such as the appearance, the bottom color, firmness, the
density, the pitch, and then the straw method, and I had to determine, do these
things really work? So we're gonna do this today, and then the last test we're
gonna do is the sugar content. We're gonna see what the sugar content of all
these watermelon are and determine which one of these actually do works. This
should be a really fun experiment. I'm gonna let you take over now, and you've
been doing most of the research on this, and I'm excited to see the results.
-Alright. Stacy and I are gonna look at these watermelons informally for
their appearance and see which ones are the ripest according to mature color and the
dull look that they have. So let's just arrange these. They're numbered 1 to 6, and so let's
just arranged them from darkest to see what they line up as. Um, that one's a light one, so that...
-That one looks the darkest to me, I'll I'll say don't— Now for the bottom color of a watermelon.
According to, uh, tradition, the bottom of a ripe watermelon should be a cream color as
opposed to a more pale white color. I'm gonna—So, see that one has a lot of white.
-And this one's white too. -Cream...that's—that's white, so let's separate those out by that factor.
-Okay, okay. -So that's the yellow, right?
-Mhmm, yellow. -Okay. Do a white.
-Alright, yellow. Yellow.
-That one's definitely yellow. -White.
-White and yellow. -Firmness.
-Okay. -They're all firm. [laughs]
-Now the firmness. Now, I don't know how much the produce police is going to like you
squeezing your wa—their watermelons, but— -Don't squeeze the Charmin.
-As long as you don't squeeze it so hard. -Yep!
-Just le—le—let's just see what, um, it— according to tradition again...
-Yeah this one is dense and—
-They should be very firm. These are pretty firm, which means they're either ripe or—
-Alright, put a -F for firm and S for soft.
-Okay. F, F, F, S after that, and... M, M. Okay. Okay. You may notice one of
the signs for a good melon is the weight, the—it should feel heavy, but you
can't measure heavy, because I know this from the start's going to be heavier than, than
that one, the little one, so I had to get density, which is just mass over
volume, and—so, I weighed each one on a scale, a kitchen scale, and then I took it's—the
volume, uh, of the melons by marking a five gallon bucket and seeing how
much water is displaced, and so I got these numbers, um, or was it yesterday,
and, um, then I'm gonna fill these in for you. The pitch is the next test. This is the one that I grew up knowing. It's about the thumping
and, you know, the hollow sound and not hollow.
This is subjective as well. We should have probably done it before the density,
but we're about to do it now. Alright? -So, let just...
-Thump away! -I'm gonna—you want to tap like that, that'll be my guess.
-Okay. -We're gonna get a more consistent thump.
-Okay. Alright, so, we're looking for the
tonal quality, one being, you know, the—the— the more deep, the more ripe.
-Yeah, in theory, yeah, it has more water. Okay. [thumps watermelons]
Alright, so that's—that's—that's lighter. So we lined it up, and it's four... -It was—it was right here, so you'll put, like, one here. So you're gonna do, like, a one, two...
-One, two. Okay. -Is that right?
-Yeah, that's right. -And then the [indecipherable], and that's six right here.
-Okay. -Alright.
-Alright. Alright, now for, in my
opinion, the most exciting myth out there. That's the method when you place the
straw, width-wise, across the watermelon. It should at least turn 45 degrees or
greater when it is ripe. Um, so let's test it. To make sure my quality of straw is
right, I'm gonna test with three broom straws plus a straw I found living and growing
outside just a couple minutes ago. I want to test them both sides twice, and both sides of the watermelon to make sure there weren't any flat spots or round spots
or something that could mess me up. Alright, let's see what we're gonna do. [Stacy] Ta-da! [Forrest] Work our way down. [Stacy] Hmm. [Stacy] What do you think? That one had a little turn to it. There you go. [Stacy] Alright, got that. Alright, moving on!
Let's check out the sugar content. Okay, so here we're gonna get to see the
telltale sign of the ripeness of these watermelon. Okay, let's tell 'em our results.
-Alright. From, um, the traditional methods, those first
two should be probably the best, they both have a dull, mature, dark, uh, look to
'em. They're yellow on the bottom, firm in texture, they have—they are very dense
or heavy, um, they—they're one of the best in pitch, and, for the straw test, number
two's the best, um, of the two, that—that number one didn't result, the straw, it hardly moved.
-Number three was next in line. -Yeah, number three was good for straw, and it was fine.
Now, number four, it had all indications of being overripe. It was dark, yellow, soft, uh...
-And it did well in the, in the test. -It was very, very low pitch, but, um, it was light, uh, light, I'm not
sure why—why it was—it had low density, um, but... And then—and then number five is your true example
of a underripe because it had— it's light, it's, um, it's white on the bottom,
um, medium firmness, de—very, very light, uh, said that already, but you get my point. Okay,
so let's find the results of—of course, the six is just kind of average, um...
-Let's get to the sugar content. I'm so excited to see what is gonna go happen in this. You gonna start with number one?
-So I'm gonna pull a plug out of each one of these, out
of the heart, um, and test the sugar content using a refractometer, which, uh, is this
little gadget right here.
-You can get it online if you want one.
-It's used a lot in the wine and honey and fruit industry. Okay. Let's start with number one. Look at that.
-That looks great. Eat it like a popsicle. -Yes.
[Stacy laughs] -Alright.
-Now, to make this work, I have to get a little bit of it's, uh, juice, it's, uh, fruit juice.
So I'm just gonna kinda smash it up with my fork, part of the watermelon real quick. Alright. Get a little messy, but... all in the name of science. -This is gonna be really exciting to figure this out.
-Alright, here's the first one. -Okay.
-So I'll look at it in the light. You all are gonna have to take my word for it. Alright. The sugar
content is just over 12—12 and a quarter degrees Brix, so it's 12 and a quarter percent.
-Okay. Here it goes. Okay, that one was third in the straw
method, and it was...
-Same line, 12. Yeah, okay, well, that's interesting, so all of them -had a 12 percent content....
-Yep. ...of sugar, or almost. That—the—the— the other one that won on the straw
method had 11 and 3/4, so it was a little bit lower. So now, I'm gonna taste it, and
I'm gonna see which one I think is the most sweet. Okay. Mmm. That is so good. Okay. M-mm. M-mm. Mm, medium. M-mm, mm! I'd throw that one off the table. M-mm. That goes
right there. This one was the worst one in taste, okay, alright, I'm gonna rate 'em. The
first one was by far the best taste. Number one. Okay, then, this one and this one were
tied, and this one, so I'll put, um, this one was pretty good, so I'm gonna put this
one as number two, this three, three, three, actually, that was a four, and this one, no,
that was a five, that was horrible, a five, and this one was a four. So, that's
by taste. What do you think? So, this one won. This one with next, which was
interesting 'cause it is 12 and a quarter, well, both of these were 12 and a
quarter. These two were the same sugar -content and those were the two that—that, uh, that I liked the best! That's cool! -Proves have a good palate!
-That it does! Okay, and this one, so this one was, uh, overripe,
so I like mine overripe, and this one must have been on its way to overripe
maybe, I don't know. This one was perfect, perfect. Then this one, you know, but it
was underripe according to everything except...except, uh, the sugar test, which is
really odd, but underripe everywhere else. So, it looks like these methods
really do work. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it had the least—you could definitely tell it had the
least amount of water in it. I mean, even looking at the plate right now, it's still dry.
-So what's—what—what is it that we can definitely go by. Okay, let's see, this was
one and two for the pitch. Okay, it looks -like the pitch was right.
-Uh-huh. Both of those were correct, you could do it. -Rely on the pitch, but make sure they're not soft. It's pretty much the— Okay. Although it was good. Okay then,
alright, then on the firmness, this one was soft, that one was firm. Yellow,
yellow. You can s—go with that, and then this one was, um, dark, and...what was it? This one was shiny, this one was shiny, this was dark and dull, so the dark and dull wins
over the dark and shiny, but, um, but I guess all those methods all together work. So,
anyway, there you go, even the spinning! Well, no, 'cause this one was the least
of the spin. I don't—I don't know that the spinning worked.
-It had to be greater than 45 degrees, and only the second one met that one, and, uh...
-And it was my third choice. It wasn't bad, but I would—I liked the others better.
So there you go! So, decide for yourself!
