When you think about {that a} watermelon is 92% water, it’s no marvel the fruit is a bona fide staple through the hottest months of the yr. However not each melon is as tasty as it’s hydrating: All too usually you chunk right into a slice solely to find that the within is mealy, bland, and decidedly unappetizing.

Odds are you’ve been catfished like this earlier than. So how do you forestall it from taking place once more? Pinpointing a tasty melon may seem to be a magic trick or delicate agricultural artwork, however there are literally some simple methods to choose a superb one so that you don’t waste your cash—and so you possibly can expertise all of its refreshing, antioxidant-packed goodness with out having to choke down a dud. Right here’s what you must know.

1. Rounder is healthier…

Melons are available all completely different styles and sizes—some are small, some huge, some rectangular, some spherical—however the “good and fats” ones are most likely going to be your finest wager, Lee Wroten, a Georgia-based watermelon farmer and the present president of the Nationwide Watermelon Promotion Board, tells SELF. “In the event that they’re actual lengthy and actual skinny, they haven’t been given time on the vine to plump up and actually fill out and attain their full maturity,” he says.

2. …And so is heavier.

When it comes to weight, select melons which can be heavy and dense for his or her measurement. “If you wish to be scientific, pick two similar-sized watermelons and weigh them on the grocery retailer scale,” Julie Backyard-Robinson, PhD, RD, a professor and extension specialist at North Dakota State College, tells SELF. Heaviness, she notes, is a powerful indicator of juiciness—and who desires a dry melon?

3. Search for bruises, scars, and different blemishes.

Subsequent, look over the rind to verify it’s not too soiled or broken, in accordance with Wroten and Dr. Backyard-Robinson. Whereas small nicks and scrapes gained’t have an effect on the standard of the flesh, Wroten says, a “good clear watermelon” evokes extra confidence than a beat-up one—and a closely bruised melon may very well be softer and mushier on the dangerous websites. (If you happen to do occur to purchase a melon with some bruising, it’s not the tip of the world. As with an apple, you possibly can at all times slice across the dangerous spots, Wroten factors out.)

4. Examine the colour on the underside.

You realize that off-color patch on the underside of a watermelon? Effectively, it has a reputation—the sphere spot—and its hue is a dependable determinant of ripeness, in accordance with Wroten.

Principally, the sphere spot refers back to the melon’s level of contact with the bottom whereas it was connected to the vine. Yellow subject spots point out the fruit “ripened within the subject,” Dr. Backyard-Robinson says. By the identical token, white subject spots recommend “the melon wasn’t allowed to mature on the vine,” Wroten says. And an immature or under-ripe melon is much less prone to style good.

5. Give it a superb knock or two.

Each watermelon that passes on the conveyor belt through the packaging and grading course of at Wroten’s farm will get “thumped,” he says. And for good motive: The ensuing sound can inform you numerous concerning the melon, together with whether or not it’s stable on the within or not.

Once you smack a watermelon with the palm of your hand, hear for a pleasant “ping.” If you happen to hear a weak, uninteresting thud as an alternative—“type of such as you’re hitting a bit of wooden,” Wroten says—be cautious. Irrespective of how excellent the melon seems to be on the surface, that sound may point out a flaw like bruising, overripeness, or hollowness.