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Bethlehem CT

For years I have hated retrieving watermelon seeds from my melons. It is very time consuming and tedious. So I tried something different last week with my 118 pounder. I decided to retrieve my melon seeds like I would my tomatoes. Here is what I did.
-Remove all the seeds from the melon with flesh attached. Just scoop it out and throw it in the bucket. ( I used a gray plastic storage container like you can buy at Wal-Mart.)
-Squish it and mash it. Then let ferment for a few days. Yellow Jackets will come en-masse to your sugary pile of melon flesh. So you may want to cover it with something.
-After 3-4 days most of the flesh should be liquefied. (if not let it ferment some more.) I further liquefied it by using a power drill with a paint stir attachment.
-Add some more water to the bucket. Then pour most of it out, (This will remove most of what is left of the flesh.) The seeds tend to float with Carolina Cross which is different than tomatoes. (which sink) Be careful not to dump out your seeds too.
Lastly take an ordinary kitchen strainer (not the type with screen) and dump the seeds and whatever is remaining into the strainer. Put the strainer in your sink and run the water over the seeds. Too clean out and remove any remaining flesh run your fingers through the seeds, remaining flesh may get caught in the drain holes. That can be worked through by running your hand in a circular motion across the bottom of the strainer forcing the flesh through. Which it will do easily since it is fermented.
Wash off your seeds, dry as normal.

What normally would take me over an hour took less than ten minutes for a 118 pound melon.
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9/20/2014 9:49:14 AM

Princeton Kentucky

Sounds good John, Last year I discovered for me that cutting the melon in 2" slices, with rinds removed I put the cut up pieces in a 5 gal bucket with screen tied over it and blasted the heck out of the stuff for about 5-10 minutes with the water hose, dumped the liquid and did it again then used a 6" screened flour sifter and grabed all the seeds. Dried them on window screen. pretty quick. Now if you would have just added some sugar you would have had some 140 proof Bud Blaster aka 0-140-0,lol.Doing it your way would make the fruit fiber seperate easier.

9/20/2014 4:24:04 PM

formerly RGG

Thanks for the tips guys.

9/28/2014 9:18:15 PM

Bethlehem CT

Yesterday I did a batch of seeds, all the seeds sunk to the bottom so I could pour off the water and what was left of the flesh. The seeds stayed behind in the bucket. It was just like doing a batch of tomato seeds. In the first batch that I did, a lot of the seeds floated.

9/29/2014 9:26:36 AM