Day Eight Results: Counter, Paper Bag or Fridge for Ripening Avocados

This is the final day of our avocado ripening experiment: day eight since the fruit came off the tree. The results in short: the paper bag was a day or two ahead of the counter, the counter got there about a day later, and the avocado in the fridge did basically nothing at all. That last result turned out to be the most useful one.

Becca actually filmed a day-seven update too, but the microphone was not working, so here is where things landed by day eight.

The paper bag: ready on day seven

The Hass in the paper bag was ready on day seven — so ready that it had already been eaten by the time we filmed. Bagging traps the ethylene gas avocados give off as they ripen, which speeds the process up a little. In this test, “a little” meant roughly one to two days ahead of the counter.

Read nextWhy Fuerte Is Our Family’s Favorite Avocado

The counter: ready on day eight

The Fuerte on the counter was soft and ready on day eight, and headed for guacamole that night. It was just starting to change color. Fuertes do not turn fully black the way Hass do, so you judge them by feel rather than color. Our guide to telling if an avocado is bad covers what to look for with both.

The fridge: nothing happened

The avocado that went into the fridge came off the tree the same day as the others, eight days earlier. After seven days in the fridge it came out onto the counter the day before filming, and it still showed nothing going on. It was simply preserved, exactly as firm as when it was picked.

That is the result Becca found most useful. Cold slows ripening to a crawl, so the fridge works like a pause button for unripe fruit.

One caution: Avocado Production in California: A Cultural Handbook for Growers, Book Two, advises against storing avocados below 41°F because chilling injury may occur, and a home fridge usually runs colder than that. We only tested a week, so we would not treat the fridge as indefinite storage.

What we are doing differently now

Here is the plan that came out of the test:

• Store firm avocados in the fridge, so we do not have to pick from the trees at the house as often.
• Pull them out about a week before we need them and let them ripen on the counter.
• Use a paper bag when we want them a day or two sooner.

The rough timeline from this test: about six to seven days on the counter, five to seven days in the bag, and fully preserved for seven days in the fridge. This was a small kitchen test with one avocado per method, and not all the same variety, so treat the numbers as a guide rather than a rule. The variety mix matters more than it might seem: a 1996 cultivar comparison in the University of California growers’ handbook rated Hass “excellent” in its response to ethylene and Fuerte only “poor,” so part of the bag’s head start may simply be that it held a Hass. Timing also shifts through the year: the handbook notes that fruit ripens faster as it gets more mature, so late-season avocados will likely beat these numbers. For the full method, including what to do once they are ripe, see our guide to how to ripen avocados.

What this means for a box of our avocados

Our fruit is picked hard, the week it ships, so it arrives firm and ripens in your kitchen. That means you can use the same trick: leave a few on the counter, and put the rest in the fridge to hold them until you are ready. We covered the timing in more detail in how long shipped avocados last.

This is the last of three parts: see the setup and the day-five check for how we got here. And for a test that did not go to plan, read about our banana-in-a-paper-bag trial, which came out backwards.

If you try any of these methods with our avocados, let us know how it goes. Our 4lb Hass box and 6lb Hass box and our 4lb Fuerte box ship free when in season — and between harvests, the waitlist on each page will email you when fruit is back. Until the trees are picking again, the avocado scoop, the Hawaiian shirt and our hats ship year-round.

This post is part of our guide to choosing, ripening and using avocados.