Watermelon

The Wondrous Way Alton Brown Juices a Watermelon

June 29, 2017

Last week, Alton Brown uploaded a video to his YouTube channel I’m astonished isn’t being talked about more widely. The video's a mere minute long, and it features his pair of man hands using three tools—a 3-inch biscuit cutter, a knife, and an immersion blender—to juice a watermelon.

Brown's methodology is simple: He tilts the watermelon onto its side, punctures the outline of a hole within the melon's bottom using the biscuit cutter, carves the hole out with a knife, and sticks the immersion blender into that resultant orifice. You’re then supposed to let the blender work its magic, pressing and pulverizing the watermelon innards until they turn runny and fluid. It's a process I imagine can be unwieldy, but Brown executes it unerringly.

He pours the juice into a measuring cup, though he recommends using a fine sieve for those who wish to strain the pulp out. Whatever you say, Alton Brown—though I don’t see anything wrong with using the watermelon as a jug.

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If you've got a watermelon juicing technique that you think beats Alton Brown's, let us know in the comments.

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Mayukh Sen is a James Beard Award-winning food and culture writer in New York. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Bon Appetit, and elsewhere. He won a 2018 James Beard Award in Journalism for his profile of Princess Pamela published on Food52.

12 Comments

Étienne C. July 2, 2017
Doesn't this method also pulp the seed as well? Yuck!
 
Greenstuff July 2, 2017
Seedless watermelon.
 
Étienne C. July 2, 2017
Not always available in my country and not always the best tasting
 
Ross P. June 29, 2017
This makes me something of a pedant, but when you say "Brown's methodology..." you mean his method. If he had provided a full history of juicing watermelons, the application of various tools for the job versus their designed purposes, the social impact of juicing a watermelon or the economic effects of selling watermelon juice - then you might have a claim to deploying "methodology" to describe what he did. I sense that you may have been reading or writing too many grad school papers and your diction became confused. Relax, take a deep breath, and remember who your audience is and exactly what it is you are writing about. Brown provides a solution (seemingly easy, I must try it) to juicing/hollowing out a watermelon; he isn't trying to write a dissertation on the subject. Or if he is, you haven't made that clear.
 
melissa June 29, 2017
I have never seen a scholarly article that includes an entire history of the subject at hand as part of its methodology. Nor does methodology require examining the economic effects of its method. That would make no sense for SO MANY disciplines. It really sounds like YOU need to get your head out of the books. White mediocrity at its finest.
 
Ross P. June 29, 2017
It seems you don't understand how lists of examples work, nor how a grammatical error can frustrate someone who sees it frequently. And while my avatar is currently a hipster-esque caricature of Winston Churchill, you assume that it means I'm white (this is the internet, after all). I'm not saying you're incorrect, just that your assumption says far more about you and your prejudices than your conjecture about me says about mine. Have a lovely day.
 
melissa June 29, 2017
You commented with your real name, so I googled you. Do you really think I thought your avatar was you? You need to cover your bases, sir, if you're going to be a scholar.
 
terry June 29, 2017
me thinks Sir Ross needs to relax and focus; this is a feature on extracting juice from a watermelon, not wording, grammar, or uses of a simple term like methodology; if this was for a thesis to obtain a PhD, attack and chew away Mr. Ross
 
Greenstuff June 29, 2017
We use small melons, just run the immersion blender right into them, and serve them out as individual drinks in melon holders. They pretty much call out for paper umbrellas.
 
Lisa B. June 29, 2017
What a delightful idea!
 
Mary-Elizabeth T. June 29, 2017
I kind of want to try this RIGHT NOW!
 
melissa June 29, 2017
very cool!