Brine & Fermentation Salt
Salt and sugar for a wet brine at a percent of the water or of the solution, or for a vegetable ferment at a percent of the whole jar; teaspoons for your salt.
Grams of salt and sugar for the brine or ferment at your percentage, the same figure on both conventions so a recipe is read correctly, the total weight, and teaspoons once you enter what a teaspoon of your salt weighs.
Example: 2 litres of water at 6 % with 3 % sugar: 120 g salt (20 teaspoons at 6 g) and 60 g sugar — 5.66 % of the finished solution; 1 kg of vegetables in 500 ml at 2 % needs 30 g.
Percent of
what?
The two conventions for a wet brine and why the page shows both, how a ferment is counted, why salt must be weighed, and what the page does not judge.
Wet brine, two conventions
A recipe’s "6 % brine" means salt as 6 % of the water (60 g per litre) or salt as 6 % of the finished solution (63.8 g per litre) — both are used, and at strong brines they differ noticeably. Choose the convention the recipe uses; the page computes the grams and shows the figure on the other convention beside it. Water is taken at 1 g per ml.
Fermentation
For sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles fermented in their own liquid, salt is a percentage of everything in the jar — vegetables plus any water added — because the vegetables give up their water into the brine. The page adds the two and takes the percentage of the total.
Weigh the salt
Fine table salt and flaky kosher salt differ two-fold by volume for the same weight of salt, so a teaspoon figure is only right for your salt: enter the grams in one level teaspoon of it and the page converts.
What the number does not settle
The percentage is the recipe’s choice and the food’s; brining time and whether a ferment is safe are not judged here. Inputs stay in your browser; the same anonymous usage counts as the rest of the site apply.