Made the most delicious lemonade today. The recipe is from Ted's Montana Grill - google it. It tastes like candy.

Two problems:

(1) Lemons are super expensive. $10 worth produced less than 1/2 gallon (2 cups of juice). Lemonade from bottled lemon juice tastes funky compared to fresh squeezed. Where do I get cheaper lemons? I bought 10 large lemons at $2.49 a pound. We don't grow citrus here.

(2) The lemons had a super thick skin. Is that normal? They were nearly impossible to squeeze with my sore thumb. I used the squeezer below and had to squeeze them on a plate using the counter as leverage. Do smaller lemons have thinner skins or more juice? Do they taste as sweet? Should I order my lemons online? That sounds expensive. I had to cut the large lemons into 6 or 8 pieces to get the skin to flatten out enough to squeeze the juice out. The lemon squeezer instructions tell you to cut them in half. Any tips? When I got to the last lemon, I remembered seeing the bartender cut off the ends first.

A third question: Someone told me to save the lemon rinds, pulp, seeds, etc. leftovers and boil them. What do I make? Syrup? Diluted juice? I need to do something with them soon. I think there is a lot of lemon left in them since I did not do a great job of squeezing.

A fourth question: How long does fresh squeezed lemonade stay good? About a quart is left and it has so much sugar that I can't drink it all quickly.

Thanks, Fruit Tree Experts!