Fridge, Counter or Paper Bag? Setting Up Our Fuerte Ripening Test

Which ripens an avocado fastest — the fridge, the counter or a paper bag? The usual answer is that the fridge slows ripening down, the counter is the baseline, and a paper bag speeds it up. Rather than take that on faith, we set up a small experiment to see it for ourselves.

This video is part one: the setup. Three avocados, three methods, and a check every couple of days.

Three giant Fuertes

We used three Fuerte avocados from this year’s harvest, and they are enormous. There are smaller ones on the tree too, but this particular tree got going a little early last season and some of its fruit has grown remarkably large.

For a fair test you want the fruit as alike as possible, so we picked three that were about the same size. Same tree, same pick, same size — so in theory they should ripen at about the same rate if nothing else changes.

Fuerte is the green, thin-skinned variety that ran California before Hass took over. If you have only ever eaten Hass, our piece on Hass versus Fuerte explains why you rarely see it in stores.

Method one: the fridge, to slow it down

The first avocado went straight into the refrigerator. Avocados ripen with the help of ethylene, a natural plant hormone that also ripens apples and bananas, and warmth drives that process. Cold slows it right down.

That is the useful thing about the fridge: it is not really a ripening method, it is a pause button. It is how you keep one avocado waiting while you work through the others.

Method two: the counter, the standard way

The second avocado had its stem popped off and was left on the kitchen counter. This is how most of us ripen avocados and it is our control — the one the other two get measured against.

Method three: the paper bag, to speed it up

The third went into a paper bag. The idea is that the bag traps the ethylene the avocado gives off, instead of letting it drift away into the room, so the fruit sits in its own ripening hormone and should soften faster.

Paper matters here. A plastic bag traps moisture as well as gas, which is not what you want around fruit.

One wrinkle worth knowing: not every variety reacts to ethylene the same way. In a 1996 cultivar comparison published in the University of California growers’ handbook, Hass was rated “excellent” in its response to ethylene and Fuerte only “poor.” So a paper bag may make less difference to a Fuerte than it would to a Hass — one more reason to watch the results rather than assume them.

What happens next

We are checking all three about every two days, with updates to follow in part two. Until then, our full guide on how to ripen avocados covers the methods we rely on day to day, and how to tell if an avocado is bad helps once one of them gets away from you.

The test continues in part two, the day-five check, where the paper bag pulls ahead, and wraps up in part three, the day-eight results.

If you would like to run the experiment yourself, our 4lb Fuerte box is picked the week it ships and arrives firm, ready for whichever method you choose. Out of season, the waitlist on the page will tell you when the trees are ready again.

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