I did a test on Strawberry Verte and grapes to see if diluting the fruit pulp with water would provide the clear liquid needed to allow brix measurement.

Grapes were my control. Cut 4 berries in half and measured brix on one half of each berry. Result was an average brix of 24.6. On the other half of each berry, skin was removed and 16 g water was added to 8 g of berries. This was mashed up and left in fridge overnight to equilibrate. That juice was strained thru Agribon 19 fabric and tested 8.8 brix. Since volume was 3 times original berries, 3 x 8.8 = 26.4 brix.  7% difference is within measurement error as scale used only reads to whole grams.

For the fig, 10 g pulp was extracted from a 21 g SV. 20 g water added, mashed up, and left in fridge just like the grapes. Brix of resulting clear liquid tested 13.4. Taking 3 x 13.4 = 40.2 brix.

I think 40.2 is a very reasonable brix number for a shriveled up fig. The upper limit of brix for a non dehydrated fruit is near 30. Plants can't concentrate liquid in there cells higher than that. Many of my fruits approach that as an upper limit. The SV fig would be near 30 when it goes limp but is boosted to 40 by dehydration.

I'm sorry for posting this twice, here and the old thread. Probably shouldn't have done that.

I feel like such a slacker.  All I do is pull the figs off the tree, then eat them. 

James:

Just something to do. And I kinda wanted to know even thou it's just a rough estimate. Besides I can only eat about two figs a day, more than that don't agree with my system....:(   To potent I guess.

Great work but since you only need 2 drops of liquid you could eat most of the fig :)

Also, the brix is higher than you measured since the seed weight shouldn't be included in the weight of the fig pulp.   :)

Bob you are right, that's one thing I didn't think about. At any rate it's sweet enough and I like really sweet fruit.

If you consider the fruit as a whole it might be less than 40 since the skin doesn't taste as sweet. On Strawberry Verte I like the skin better than the pulp.

Since you don't have the wasp your seeds are probably light.  40 Brix is pretty impressive!

With grapes you don't count the skin, do you?  You just drop some juice on, yes?  Or do I have that wrong?

With grapes I just squeeze the berry until juice runs out. So that would bypass the skin for the most part.

With stone fruit I cut off a slice and squeeze that. Most blueberry don't easily yield juice and the berries vary a lot in sweetness. So I take about 10 and mash them in the Agribon 19. Some apples and pears are too hard to easily juice but are big enough that they can be crushed one way or another.

There are many figs with high brix, and more with low brix.  Drop of honey and taste test is the best in my book.  I do test the grapes, but their juice is pure.  Not so with a fig.

Suzi

Steve you are the man! It sounds like you are ready to make some fig wine....?

Great idea Steve! I was thinking about buying a refractometer sometime.

But I must say I think there is something askew in your brix values. A really rip fig is supposed to hit about 22-23, and even something as super sweet as pineapple comes in at 26-28. A stone fruit expert once told me that the sweetest fruit he ever measured in the field was a cherry in Central Asia that hit 30 brix. So a 40 brix fig seems really high, even as a dried fruit. National average for prunes is 18.5 brix, therefore it is hard to imagine a semi-dried fig more than twice as sweet as a commercially produced prune.

I am guessing that the problem is there are areas of concentration in your solution so that you get higher readings on solids than you should. But this is outside my area of expertise, just my science training tells me this seems too high.

Nevertheless, this is a great start. I hope several of us can chip in and further this inquiry.

Gene:

I have measured above 32 brix in apricot, sweet cherry, nectarine, and pluot. One could argue that those fruits were maybe somewhat dehydrated on the tree but not enough to be wrinkled up. So I'm not surprised by 40 on a fruit that's clearly considerably dehydrated.

I spent nearly 24 hrs allowing the sugars to equilibrate and then mixed things up well. I don't think that was an issue.

Not sure where you are coming up with 18.5 brix prunes. But that's way too low. They'd rot rather than dry if sugars were that low.

Steve,

What if you added salt to the macerated figs?  Do you think the salt would throw off the reading?  Reason I mention it is we always salt our cut up tomatoes and then let them sit.  The salt draws the moisture out so your bruschetta is not so wet.   Pretty sure salt added to the macerated fig would produce liquid though have not tried it.

Wills:

Just to be sure I tested a salt solution in water. It reads just like sugar. Both are soluable solids. So that's not an option. I'm happy with what I did. The answer is about what I expected.

Interesting. We have a Battaglia.

Looks like it would be good with rum.