Super juice calculator
Make lime or lemon super juice using the weight of your citrus peels. Calculate the citric acid, malic acid and water you need, then see your estimated yield and cost per liter compared with fresh juice.
How to make super juice
Everything scales from the weight of the peels.
Worked example: the Marlowe's lime super juice
| Line | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Limes, peeled and juiced, 25 ml each | 12 · 300 ml juice | $2.88 |
| Lime peels | 100 g | |
| Citric acid, 100 g × 0.66 | 66 g | $0.53 |
| Malic acid, 100 g × 0.33 | 33 g | $0.40 |
| Water, 100 g × 16.66 | 1,666 ml | $0.00 |
| About 1.97 L of super juice | $1.93 per liter | $3.80 |
The same 12 limes pressed for fresh juice give 300 ml at $9.60 a liter. As super juice they give 6.6 times the volume at about a fifth of the cost per liter. The acid prices here are examples; type yours above.
- Peel the fruit in strips with a vegetable peeler and weigh the peels.
- Toss the peels with the citric and malic acid in a container and let them sit for up to two hours.
- Juice the peeled fruit.
- Blend the peels and acids with the water and the juice for about 30 seconds.
- Strain through cheesecloth, bottle, and label the bottle with the date.
Juice per lime swings with size and season, so measure what your limes give before you trust the yield; the Marlowe gets 25 ml a lime from its cases.
How long super juice keeps
Kevin Kos keeps it in the fridge and uses it within a week, and Brian Tasch reports a week without a noticeable change in flavor. That is guidance on flavor. Keep it cold and covered, date every bottle, throw it out if it smells or looks wrong, and follow your local food-safety rules for prepared juices.
Who came up with super juice
Super juice is Nickle Morris's method, from Expo, his bar in Louisville, Kentucky. Kevin Kos adapted it with Dave Arnold's acid formulas into the ratios above, and those are the ratios most published calculators use. Published versions differ: Morris's own recipe, as printed by Chilled Magazine, is the peels of 3 limes with 16.5 g citric acid, 3 g malic acid, 1½ cups of water and the limes' juice; Summit Sips gives 100 g of peel with 45 g citric acid, 8 g malic acid and 1 liter of water. The acid level changes with the version, so pick one, write it on the prep sheet and keep to it.
Sources: ratios, method and storage, Kevin Kos, "How to get 8x as much juice from one citrus" (2022, updated 2025); Nickle Morris's original, Chilled Magazine; Summit Sips (2022); shelf life, Brian Tasch, Corpse Revived (2023, updated 2025). Fruit prices and yields: the Marlowe, a sample bar.
- Sarah Dawn MarsWrote this · Head of customer success and community
Sarah co-founded and ran Teresa Cocktail Bar, a Tales of the Cocktail nominee. She was also the first customer success hire at Loaded and now builds Overproof.
Super juice questions
What is the ratio for lemon super juice?
In Kevin Kos's version, citric acid equal to the peel weight, no malic acid, and 16.66 times the peel weight in water. 100 g of lemon peel takes 100 g of citric acid and 1,666 g of water.
Can I make lime super juice without malic acid?
You can make it with citric acid alone, as the lemon version does, but it is a different recipe from the published lime one and will taste different. If you change the acids, taste it against fresh juice in the drinks you serve before it goes on the rail.
How many limes make 100 g of peel?
It depends on the limes and the peeler. One published recipe card gets 40 g of peel from 4 to 6 limes, 7 to 10 g a lime, which puts 100 g at roughly 10 to 15 limes. Weigh a few of yours and use "Estimate from the count" with your figure.
Does it work with oranges?
Kevin Kos publishes an orange version: 0.9 times the peel weight in citric acid, 0.1 times in malic acid, and the same 16.66 times in water.
Is super juice cheaper than fresh juice?
At the Marlowe's prices, about $1.93 a liter against $9.60 for fresh lime juice, because the same limes give over six times the volume. Run your own fruit and acid prices in the calculator above.
House juices costed like any spec
In Jery, super juice is a pre-batch with its own recipe and yield. Its cost per liter comes from the limes and acids on your invoices and flows into every drink that uses it, and the prep plan says how much to make before the weekend.
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Cost house juices into every drink
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