2016 Midwest Tomato Trials

[Scooty]

Pink Passion
6.9 Brix
4.25 PH
Reminds me of the Purple Heart in that there is little juice. Meaty, but larger locular cavities.

Arctic Rose
6.0 Brix
4.21 PH
Tart but not quite pucker sour. Juicy.

[Scooty]

Many vars aren't ripe yet. Working through second batch of fruits from those already producing. Pretty much all the same values, with one exception. We're getting very sweet Wild Freds now. All the dwarf reds aren't in, but WF is amazing.

Brix at 8.8 now.

[Gardeneer]

Thanks for sharing your data.
I am kinda got an impression that all your tomato varieties are on the low acid side. I don't see anything under 4.00.
How accurate your pH meter is ?

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Thanks for sharing your data.
I am kinda got an impression that all your tomato varieties are on the low acid side. I don't see anything under 4.00.
How accurate your pH meter is ?

I calibrate it before testing every batch. So it should be pretty accurate, probably within 0.03 PH. I was considering a cheaper PH meter but they don't go out to two significant digits, so I decided to use a lab one for my tests.

Also, I'm not sure about "low-acid". If anything, I'd say a lot of the tomatoes are coming out "high-acid" or tending to be more acidic. According to the food safety reference sheet by wisc.edu, most if not all my tomatoes are leaning toward acidic, even those that I regard as sweet.

This may be just a reflection of the growing conditions or this specific year. My Polish C, for example, may have a Brix over 11, but it's a tomato I regard as mildly tart with lots of sweetness. Whereas, the recent Wild Freds are better described as sweet without much tartness. My Sophie's Choice had much more perceived sour to it, but that may simply because there's little sweetness, despite having a 4.6 PH.

[Scooty]

Sophie's Choice has started to peter out in the heat.
Starting to get to the last fruits, which are a bit sweeter.
4.21 PH
6.1 Brix

Mano
4.19 PH
4.9 Brix
It's less sweet but it's a close tie to Sophie's Choice. Manos were juicer and flavor wise there's more tomatoey depth, more savory.

[Scooty]

Sleeping Lady
5.6 Brix
4.20 PH
Still prefer the Wild Fred. That seems to be a clear standout for the red/purple/black dwarf project matos, others seem to come short with respect to taste (fresh/raw).

The Sunrise Bumblebees and other cherries have started to come out, but it always seems to me the first cluster isn't as sweet or indicative as what follows, so I'm waiting for a few more ripe fruits before I start to take readings.

[Lindalana]

Originally Posted by Scooty

Polish C is mentioned in Carolyn's book if I'm not mistaken. I've seen it mentioned a few times on the forum, and I'm a bit surprised this variety hasn't been discussed more often. Then again, I have no reference point to know if mine is the prototypical Polish C PL. It's a nice big pink tomato. Average fruit size is probably around 5oz-ish. For many years now, we've been primarily been selecting for sweetness and taste, and to a minor lesser degree productivity. I should have some seed later once they all ripen up. Is your garden full already?

Thanks much for keeping me in mind! Am at about done with community garden, harvested big flush but still going with the house ones.
My garden being full never stopped me wanting more new varieties LOL!

[Scooty]

These are F2 fruits from an attempt to miniaturize Black Krim. AA battery for scale. These were picked today, after ripening on the vine. I'm guessing that this will probably mirror Ron's Carbon Copy in the sense that it will take several more generations to eliminate larger size fruit.

[moray-eel-bite]

The pH of a tomato probably isn't a good gauge of how acidic it tastes. Tomatoes have many different acids in them, and each contributes to the taste. Titratable acid might be a better judge. Given that most of the acids present are weak acids in the first place, pH alone doesn't tell one a whole lot as it will depend of what buffering salts are present as to what pH is shown regardless of total acids.
Granted, it's the easiest measure of acid, but of fairly limited utility for how the acid will taste.

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by moray-eel-bite

The pH of a tomato probably isn't a good gauge of how acidic it tastes. Tomatoes have many different acids in them, and each contributes to the taste. Titratable acid might be a better judge. Given that most of the acids present are weak acids in the first place, pH alone doesn't tell one a whole lot as it will depend of what buffering salts are present as to what pH is shown regardless of total acids.
Granted, it's the easiest measure of acid, but of fairly limited utility for how the acid will taste.

You're right it's not. There's nth degree of flavonoids that contribute to taste, and those with respect to acidity are just a singular component of the hundreds that'd turn up on a spectrophotometer.

PH doesn't really care about the taste component, just the total strength of the acids (malic, tartaric, citric, tartaric, asorbic, lactic, etc...). And titratable is just the opposite.

The problem with testing titratable acid is that it's really not great for things like tomatoes. The home kits they sell for wine making are only accurate up to 1%, and even then its by the eye. Commercial growers that do high acidicy or low sugar grapes get their stuff lab tested, because higher accuracy equipment is required. And generally speaking, tomatoes definitely have more acidic components than wine grapes.

I mean, I don't mind playing with phenolphthalein, but that's way more time that I intend to spend on tomatoes. I actually want to spend some time eating them.

It also hurts me to think of how many tomatoes I'd have to sacrifice to titratable testing. All those Ron's Carbon Copy 'matoes I'd need to destroy just achieve something like a 5 grams of juice just pains me. Then, I need to breakout a blender, a lot of coffee filters, etc... then some NaOH, etc.. etc..

Tomatoes aren't the usual bread and butter when I go to the lab, but, it's important to note that they are probably less diverse than grapes with respect to acidic components. Tomatoes in general have more citric acid, and less malic acid. The ratio is probably the same across varieties or at least within variety groups (reds, purples, GWR, yellows, etc...). So as the saying goes, "ceteris paribus", my results weren't ever intended to say one variety is more acid tasting when comparing the PH achieved by someone else. It's only saying that within the tomatoes I grew, one variety is more acidic tasting (or less) than another variety I grew.

[Lindalana]

I usually test my cooking batch, when all are mashed together and I consistenly get about 4.1 coloring with no added ingredients.

[Gardeneer]

Question : How do you measure brix ? Is there a special device for it ?
I know how to measure brix of grape juice before making wine.Actually is is a measure of specific gravity.

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Question : How do you measure brix ? Is there a special device for it ?
I know how to measure brix of grape juice before making wine.Actually is is a measure of specific gravity.

Same type of device, same process. Only diff is I use a digital meter.

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by Scooty

Same type of device, same process. Only diff is I use a digital meter.

Thanks, Scooty .

[Lindalana]

I have refractometer suggested I think by Amy on this site, about $20 or so on line