Recommended lemon juice to water ratio when making lemonade

Question

A lot of recipes I see call for lemon quantity but this can be very relative as some lemons differ in weight/size, thus yielding to different amounts of lemon juice.

For instance, if I wanted to make half a gallon's worth of lemonade, what would be the recommended ratio of lemon juice to water be? I tend to use about 2 cups of sugar to give you an idea of level of sweetness in half a gallon's worth of lemonade.

Answer 1

According to this lemonade recipe Best Lemonade Ever rated by 3K people, averaging a rating of 5 stars, the ratio is

• 1 ¾ cups white sugar
• 8 cups water
• 1 ½ cups lemon juice

Since you're using 2 cups of sugar, I recommend you follow the recipe:

• 2 cups white sugar
• 9 cups water
• 1 ⅔ cups (27 tbsp) lemon juice

As for lemons to lemon juice estimate, from How Much Juice Can You Get From One Lemon?:

• 1 Small Lemon (4 oz.) = 3 tbsp fresh juice.
• 1 Medium Lemon (5 oz.) = 4 tbsp fresh juice.
• 1 Large Lemon (6 oz.) = 5 tbsp fresh juice

So...

• using small lemons, you'll need about 9
• using medium lemons, you'll need about 7
• using large lemons, you'll need about 5

Answer 2

My mother taught me to make lemonade using a 3:1:1 ratio: 1 cup of lemon juice and 1 cup of sugar for every 3 cups of water. Based on that ratio, if you're using 2 cups of sugar, you would also use 2 cups of lemon juice.