Harvesting, Seed Saving and Brix
 

Now that the crop is coming in the picking, seed saving and new for me this year checking the Brix of the different varieties has begun. I picked up a Refractometer from Amazon. It ran around $25.00 which is very reasonable w/temperature compensation and used it today for the first time. The fruits I checked ran 4.5 to 6.0. using the juice from the seed cavities. For Accurate readings you need to cut a wedge from the tomato and run it through a garlic press and strain before applying to the refractometer. I will try his method in the coming weeks.
Ami

Please remind us again what a refractometer measures.. :) It sure looks an interesting device.

Very interesting amideutch.

Looking forward to your results with the various tomato varieties.

NarnianGarden, I think amideutch is going to measure the brix/or how much sugar each tomato variety has...thereby measuring how sweet or not so sweet each one is. The Refractometer can measure objectively how much sugar there is within a given sample...from what I remember at least, usually one averages several Brix readings to come up with a Brix for a tomato variety. The Brix reading is just a way to measure the ratio of dissolved sucrose (sugar) to water in a liquid. According to some growers, a Brix reading minimum of 5 is needed to be considered good tomato fruit. But I'm sure that depends on how sweet one likes their tomatoes too. I hope this helps somewhat. Amideutch can probably go more into detail/the process of how it's measured using the refractometer...very cool though...and for $25 on Amazon...maybe I'll get one too.:)

Curious to see which varieties have hit Brix readings of 6 or more for you Amideutch. As I tend to like my tomatoes on the sweeter side.

OK thanks! I did check the Wiki and saw something about measuring sugar. Would be interesting to hear the results. :)

Here is a link that covers Brix pretty well. Ami

[url]http://www.tandjenterprises.com/brix_equals_quality.htm[/url]