How much juice is in a lime?

Some particularly large limes may give more, while small or dry ones may give much less. For prep and costing, the number that matters is what your current delivery actually gives. To cost a lime drink or write a prep list, you need one number: the juice in one lime. If your figure is too high, you press too few limes and run out during service. If it is too low, you press too many and pour juice away at close. So first measure your limes and see why the number changes. Then use it to cost the juice and plan your prep.

Measure the juice in your own limes

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) lists 44 g of juice for one lime. That is about 1½ oz (43 ml), or about 3 tablespoons. Limes vary with size, season and age, so use that figure only as a reference.

To find your own figure, measure a batch, never one lime. Press 20 limes with a hand press, pour the juice into a measuring jug with ml marks, and divide the total by 20. If 20 limes give 600 ml, each lime gives 600 ÷ 20 = 30 ml, or 1 oz.

Juice per lime (ml) = juice from a counted batch (ml) ÷ limes in the batch

Use the same press and technique each time you measure. If different bartenders press the sample in different ways, some of the variation may come from the method rather than the fruit.

Write the figure and the date on your prep list. The rest of this guide uses 1 oz (30 ml) a lime.

Lime size and juice

Bigger limes generally give more juice, but size isn't the whole story. Ripeness, storage and how you press the fruit all affect what comes out.

The USDA sets a minimum juice-content requirement for graded Persian limes (also called Tahiti limes): at least 42% juice, so 100 g of lime holds at least 42 g of juice under its test. We can use that to estimate how much juice a case might contain, but a bar still needs to measure what its own press actually extracts.

In the US, limes are sold by count: the number of limes in a 40 lb (18.1 kg) case. A case of 200s holds 200 limes, and a case of 110s holds 110 bigger ones. So the count tells you what one lime weighs. The table below gives the estimated juice yield for a 40 lb case at 42% juice content, per lime, for six counts.

Using the same 42% assumption, every 40 lb case works out to roughly 7.5 liters of juice, regardless of how many limes it contains.

That's a calculation from the grading standard, not a guarantee of what you'll press. Actual yield can vary with the fruit, its condition and your juicing method.

The useful part of the case count is knowing roughly how many limes you're handling. A case of 110s means fewer, larger limes to cut and press than a case of 250s. Whether it gives more usable juice is something you need to measure.

Your limes can give less than the table, because limes lose juice as they dry. Limes that spent days in transit and in your walk-in fridge have probably started to dry.

Say your limes give 30 ml each. The table shows 37 ml for a 200s lime, so yours give about a fifth less. A case of 200s then gives you 6 liters, not 7.5. A case that weighs less than 40 lb also holds less juice, so weigh each case as part of checking each delivery.

How much the juice can change between deliveries

Lime yield can change dramatically between deliveries.

Blogger Brian Tasch found that the limes available when he began testing citrus alternatives gave roughly 1½ to 2 oz (45 to 60 ml) each. Two weeks later, the limes he could find were giving only ¼ to ½ oz (about 8 to 15 ml).

That's a large difference. It doesn't tell us exactly how fast an individual lime dries out, but it shows how unreliable a fixed yield can become when the fruit changes.

If the price per lime stays the same, a drop like that can make each ounce of juice several times more expensive.

Does the juicer change the juice per lime?

Yes. An electric reamer (a machine with a spinning cone) gets more juice than a hand press, but more juice is not better juice. In a test by Dave Arnold, equal piles of limes gave 26 oz with the reamer and 21.5 oz with the hand press: 21% more.

But in a blind tasting of limeade, about 55 working bartenders preferred the hand-pressed juice. Arnold suggested that the spinning cone might extract more bitterness from the pith, the white layer under the peel, although the test didn't establish that.

For a bar, the choice comes down to flavor, yield and how quickly the team needs to prep.

Try both methods with your own limes. Taste the juice in a finished drink, compare the yield and see how long each method takes. Once you've chosen a method, use it consistently so your costing and prep figures stay reliable.

For a consistent hand-press test, use one firm stroke per half. That's also how the USDA standardizes its inspection measurements.

What lime juice costs

Take limes at $0.30 each, or $60 for a case of 200. At 1 oz (30 ml) a lime, a liter of juice costs $10.00. An ounce of juice costs 30 cents, the price of one lime.

Cost per liter of juice = price per lime ÷ juice per lime (ml) × 1,000

Cost per ounce of juice = price per lime ÷ juice per lime (oz)

The less juice each lime gives, the more each liter costs:

Here, 1 oz means the 30 ml measure used in our example. If your specs use exact US fluid ounces, use 29.57 ml instead.

To find the juice a night needs, add up the lime juice in every drink you expect to sell. Say Friday's drinks need 2 liters (about 68 oz) and Saturday's need 3 liters (about 101 oz). At 30 ml a lime, those 5 liters cost $50. At 20 ml a lime, they cost $75.

How many limes to press for a weekend

Friday needs 2,000 ml. At 30 ml a lime, that is 2,000 ÷ 30 = 66.7, so press 67 limes. Saturday needs 3,000 ÷ 30 = 100 limes. The weekend takes 167 limes, less than one case. At 20 ml a lime, it would take 250.

Limes to press = juice needed (ml) ÷ juice per lime (ml), rounded up

Treat that as your minimum forecast. You may need a little extra for spills, uneven fruit or a busier-than-expected service.

Also count the limes you'll use for wedges and other garnishes separately. Those don't all become juice. Start with a modest buffer, then adjust it from what the team actually uses and discards.

For a bar focused on fresh citrus flavor, pressing each day's juice on the day of service is a good house policy. In Arnold's tastings for his book Liquid Intelligence, older lime juice lost some of the qualities he valued in fresh juice, so don't assume yesterday's prep will work just as well in tonight's Daiquiris. If your house standard is same-day juice, plan quantities around that and discard what remains at close. If you press the whole case on Friday, you get 6 liters, but Friday uses only 2. At close you pour away the other 4 liters: $40 of juice. The same policy applies to batched sours: add their juice on the day you serve them.

Press in the afternoon, so the juice is a few hours old at service. In Arnold's tasting, juice that had stood four hours beat juice pressed 45 minutes before the tasting. Keep it covered and cold, and taste it before service. Put the press time and the lime count on your bar prep list. For how long your other prepped bottles keep, see the shelf-life chart.

Questions

Sources

1. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, United States Standards for Grades of Persian (Tahiti) Limes (effective May 31, 2006), §51.1000(b) and §51.1002(b).
2. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Persian (Tahiti) Limes: Shipping Point and Market Inspection Instructions (June 2007), Maturity (Juice Content).
3. USDA FoodData Central, Lime juice, raw (SR Legacy 168156) and Lemon juice, raw (SR Legacy 167747): portion weights.
4. USDA AMS Specialty Crops Market News, Chicago Terminal Market Fruit Prices (HX_FV010), September 30, 2025.
5. Dave Arnold, Cooking Issues, Fresh Lime Juice: WTF? (October 1, 2010).
6. Dave Arnold Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail (2014). W. W. Norton. Quoted in VinePair, The Acid Test: What's the Best Version of Lime Juice for Cocktails? (June 18, 2025).
7. Milk Street (Christopher Kimball), Getting the Most Juice from Your Limes (April 18, 2025).
8. Brian Tasch, Corpse Revived, Maximizing Citrus, Part 3: Mastering Pseudo Citrus.
9. Kevin Kos, How to get 8x as much juice from one citrus (2022, updated 2025).