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.

Anastasia Zendaya · Accepted Answer

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

Recommended lemon juice to water ratio when making lemonade

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