I made some tangerine marmalade today. I obediently soaked the cut fruit for 24 hours and then cooked it without changing the water as instructed in the recipe. Since the raw peel was not terribly bitter the final results were pretty good although my experience with marmalade is that it mellows quite a bit after resting for a couple of months. I'm just curious if the water soak does anything. The fruit didn't seem to have changed much over night. I'm wandering if this is a traditional step that isn't really necessary or if this was just kind of thin, mellow peel that didn't benefit much from soaking.