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Selecting a fully ripe pomegranate that has the perfect balance of juiciness and sweetness is not so easy. Knowledgeable consumers are familiar with several tricks based on long-term observations that make it possible to visually determine the ripeness of a large southern berry. Tactile experience skills also help in successfully choosing a vitamin purchase.
When can you buy pomegranate?
The time for pomegranates to ripen is in autumn. Already in the first months of the off-season, a new crop goes on sale. In November, December and January, fresh, juicy and fully ripe fruits are chosen at the markets. Pomegranate is an export item for many countries. To buy a fresh product, before purchasing you can study:
- where the fruits come from on store shelves;
- What season does the harvest fall in a particular country?
Experts advise choosing high-quality ripe pomegranates, as in the photo above:
- in winter – grew up in Latin America;
- in the spring – imported from Turkey and Egypt;
- in summer - from Greece;
- in autumn – brought from the Caucasus and Central Asia.
How to choose the right ripe pomegranate
The granular berry, splashing with red sweet juice, is not cheap. Therefore, it is better to familiarize yourself with its features in order to choose a ripe and high-quality pomegranate, rather than a stale or rotten one.
How to determine the ripeness of a pomegranate by appearance
When choosing a pomegranate, you should take a closer look at large specimens, in which the juicy shell of the grains is usually ripe and sweet, and the film between the segments is thin and transparent. The most common fruits in stores have skins of different shades of red - from pinkish to orange. The cover can also be bright red or intense burgundy. The ripeness of a pomegranate is often determined by the color of the skin. There are some varieties of other colors:
- pinkish green;
- white;
- creamy.
The flesh may also be only slightly pinkish. But such varieties rarely go on sale. More often they are purchased in the areas where they are grown - in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Spain. Trees with such pomegranates also grow in Crimea.
How to choose a good pomegranate by smell
A healthy tasty fruit, if it is not cut and there are no cracks, does not smell of anything. Therefore, choose the right pomegranate, which does not emit any aroma. If you notice any odor, the fruit may have been damaged during transportation. Due to compression or strong impact, the skin cracked, and rotting processes began inside. There may also be a foreign odor that has been absorbed due to storage in unsuitable conditions.
How to choose a delicious pomegranate by hardness
When purchasing, they also use the tactile method. When choosing a pomegranate in a store, determine how hard its peel is. Ideally, it is not smooth, but with curves, dry and dense, without cracks. It seems that the thin crust hardly holds back the grains filled with juice, and therefore was slightly deformed. When lightly compressed, rows of dense grains are felt. The crust is also durable and cannot be pryed off with a fingernail. A soft area indicates putrefactive processes due to impact.
Another feature of ripe pomegranate is its pleasant, slightly perceptible roughness. External roughness indicates that the fruit has accumulated enough sugars and was picked at the time of full ripeness. Only a pomegranate that is fully ripened on the tree will have the maximum concentration of juiciness and sweetness.
Having chosen a fruit, you can easily shake it. If the quality is good, the crust fits tightly to the grains. It feels like a solid object in the hand. Fruits that have been lying around for a long time dry out and the pulp significantly loses its juiciness. The shell of the grains becomes sluggish, the taste deteriorates.
The next indicator of ripeness is the crown at the top, formed from dry triangular sepals of a brownish hue or corresponding to the main color of the entire peel. When choosing a quality product, you need to know that the sepals should not be green inside or too woody. An important point is that the sepals of ripe fruits are open and turned outward.
How to determine the ripeness of a pomegranate by weight
The easiest way to choose a ripe pomegranate when purchasing is to focus on its weight and size, 8-10 cm in diameter.As a rule, fruits are brought to the market whose weight is in the range of 400-700 g. It is quite possible that those fruits that were picked unripe have a lower weight. Large pomegranates have fresh and juicy seeds. Between two fruits of exactly the same volume, choose the one that weighs more. Mass indicates the juiciness of the pulp. A dried specimen that has already lost some of its juice due to wilting may also have less weight. Or, on the contrary, it didn’t have time to ripen or fill up.
Experienced consumers choose heavier fruit because it usually tastes better:
- the pulp is filled with juice;
- enough sugary substances have accumulated.
How to choose sweet pomegranate by sound
Ingenuity will help you apply another method by which a good pomegranate is determined. It turns out that these grainy, tart-tasting berries, at the time of their absolute ripeness, can resonate interestingly. It may not be possible to choose them in this way with a seller on the market. And on the displays in supermarkets, the most curious shoppers carefully practice. Lightly clicking a pomegranate with a fingernail, which was chosen based on appearance criteria, listen to the sound made by the fruit. Many sources claim that high-quality specimens, which have reached maximum sugar content and are filled with juice, emit a special ringing sound. It is compared to the ringing that occurs after a light blow to a metal object.
This resonance is explained by the significant amount of juice formed in the pomegranate pulp. Dry or unripe fruits also resonate in response to tapping, but in a different way. Low-quality fruits with a whole rind produce a dull, barely audible hum. Damaged peel prevents any response from being produced.Only experienced buyers choose a product this way. It's better to try it at home first.
There is also a somewhat radical method to choose a quality copy based on sound. When you try to squeeze a pomegranate in your fist, you can hear a faint crunch. This is also said to be a sufficient indicator of a fresh and ripe product.
How to identify a spoiled pomegranate
When choosing fruits from those offered, they primarily rely on visual assessment. The color of the peel determines whether the pomegranate is ripe or not, and then resort to more sophisticated methods of quality control. Signals to be careful are:
- mechanical damage to the peel;
- spots of a different color that stand out sharply on a plain surface;
- dents and cracks in the crust.
If you are allowed to pick up a pomegranate, you must examine it from all sides, paying attention to:
- for the safety of the peel;
- the presence of a uniform color of the cover with similar tints of tone;
- fruit hardness;
- dryness of the sepals and their brown color;
- no smell.
Pomegranates with soft spots are put aside without hesitation, because this is a clear sign of a spoiled product. Moreover, not only one slice can be of poor quality, but also all neighboring ones. The defect occurs from impact, freezing or infection by various rot pathogens. We categorically do not choose to buy grenades that have a small black speck visible on the soft part of the cover. Such a stain is an obvious sign of a source of rot, from where the process has most likely spread to all the segments.
They avoid buying fruits, choosing pomegranates based on ripeness, with a glossy peel, without roughness, which indicates their immaturity. Cracked specimens are dangerous because fermentation often develops in them under the influence of air.As a result, fungi have already spread on the surface of the grain shells.
When choosing a pomegranate, it is also clear by touch which fruits have been stored for a long time. In such specimens, the crust is too dry, thin, and voids are noticeable near it.
Conclusion
Choosing a pomegranate, ripe and sweet, means developing powers of observation based on the recommendations received. By applying the advice of experts when choosing a pomegranate, you can enjoy healthy and tasty fruits.
