I’ve been looking at brix for tomatoes and I’m thoroughly confused.
Hazera Genetics Introduces High Brix Gourmet Tomato
September 17, 2013
Hazera Genetics, developers of cherry tomatoes, cluster tomatoes, and seedless watermelons, has achieved a new milestone with the development of Maggie, a gourmet tomato. Maggie gourmet tomato seeds are now available to growers worldwide.
“The Maggie gourmet tomato is the result of six years of our painstaking work using traditional cross-breeding techniques,” said Gadi Ben Ariel, Ph.D. School of Agriculture, Hebrew University, the developer of the tomato. “We succeeded in creating a tomato that has a Brix sweetness rating of 5.5, compared with the average tomato’s rating of 1 or 2. This is truly a snacking tomato that can be featured raw.” [emphasis added]…
The 10.0 Brix Tomato Challenge
… Here’s a scale I came up with to provide taste reference points for brix measurements.
- 4.0–5.0 The majority of commercial tomatoes seem to fall into this range. Undistinguished flavor.
- 6.0 This is where the tomato starts to taste like a tomato. Brightness comes into good tomato flavor.
- 8.0 Denser, more intensity and bright, concentrated flavor, a noticeably good tomato
14.0 Brix Brandywine
- 10.0 Dense, solid, tremendous varietal flavor. We are experiencing a truly great tomato.
- 12.0 You will remember this tomato taste for a long time.
- 14.0 The highest brix tomato (Brandywine) I have tasted. Unbelievable. A flavor to make an Italian grandmother weep with joy.
Perhaps 10.0 Brix is raising the bar too high but we shall see. Emmett, the 10.0 Brix Tomato Challenge is dedicated to you. Let’s cross our fingers. ….
Why Backyard Tomatoes Taste So Terrific
… The tomatoes grown in Farmscape plots at homes in the LA area scored between 5.0 and 9.0 on the Brix scale. Farmers’ market tomatoes scored a 4.3 on average, while local grocery store tomatoes scored 4.0. None of the purchased tomatoes, Farmscape said, scored above 5.0. …
The High Brix Gardens brix chart lists Tomatoes from 4 – 12.
Why does Hazera Genetics say that average tomatoes brix at 1 to 2? And 5.5 doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment.
I checked a neighbor’s tomatoes and they brixed around 5. And unfortunately, it’ll be a while till we have tomatoes. We have a few volunteers with fruit, but I have yet to start most of the tomatoes I want to grow. More on that in another post.
On Netflix, there is a documentary “In search of Israeli Cuisine” where a tomato farmer growing cherry tomatoes and using brackish water claims to have tomatoes as high at 18 deg Brix.
The farmer said that the experiment was discontinued as the fruits were too sweet and not really palatable for people.
Steve, interesting, I’ll try to find that documentary once winter storms keep us indoors. I can’t even imagine tomatoes too sweet!
Hi
I might be able to help. I work for one of the last fresh pack tomato companies in the US. (We are in CA). I received tons of training, including BRIX training. During this training I learned that tomatoes average somewhere around 6-9% BRIX. Hope this helps
Kyle, thanks, that sounds about right for home grown, I don’t think I ever got more that 5.5 for a store bought tomato.
It’s been such a busy year and I just harvested the first tomatoes in the last two weeks and they are SO good