How can I tell when the wax has been removed from citrus fruit? This evening I tried different ways (taken from other cooking forums) of removing the wax coating from lemons.


Pouring boiling water over
In a bowl with (initially) boiling water for five minutes
Scrubbing with warm water and dishwashing liquid
Scrubbing with warm water and ascorbic acid
Scrubbing with warm water and baking soda. 


After each trial I rubbed the lemons with a tea cloth. The methods involving boiling water produced slightly tacky, but less glossy lemons. The other methods made no obvious difference. No method really impressed me, and in the end I couldn't say if one method was better than another.

Before I experiment further, I would like to find a more objective technique for judging the results.

Some methods left the lemons looking as glossy as they were to begin with. Other methods left the skin feeling slightly tacky. Neither of these outcomes seems right to me, although I'm hampered by the fact that I live in a country where you don't see many lemon trees. I'm not quite sure how an unwaxed lemon looks and feels.

Is there some way that I can unambiguously tell whether the wax coating applied to prolong the shelf life of a citrus fruit has been successfully removed?
The best way to remove wax from citrus is simply to wash it with dish soap under warm, running water. Don't obsess about how long you should wash the fruit; usually the wax application is very thin and quickly removed.

There is no easy way to tell whether you have removed the wax, so if you return citrus to fridge after removing the wax, you might want to add a sticker to the fruit, or somehow indicate in another way that it has been washed, so that you know to use that piece of fruit promptly.

The true indicator that you have removed the wax is that the citrus will spoil more rapidly :(