Choose how you are salting, put in the weight of the vegetables (for kraut and kimchi) or the amount of water (for a brine), and the calculator gives the salt in grams. The full reasoning behind each percentage is in how much salt to use for fermenting vegetables.

Fermentation salt and brine calculator

Weigh out
0 g salt
If you must measure by spoonAbout
Canning and pickling salt, table salt-
Fine sea salt-
Morton kosher salt-
Diamond Crystal kosher salt-

Spoon weights are typical figures for each salt and vary by brand and packing: a scale is the reliable way. A water-weight brine: 1 ml of water weighs 1 g.

Which method, which percentage

Dry salting is for shredded or grated vegetables: sauerkraut, kimchi, curtido. The salt pulls the vegetables' own juice out to make the brine, so the percentage is of the vegetables' weight. USDA research puts the best cabbage fermentation at about 2%; the University of Saskatchewan recommends 2.5%; the NCHFP's tested sauerkraut recipe, 3 tablespoons of canning salt to 5 pounds of cabbage, lands in the same range.

Brining is for whole or chunked vegetables that sit in salted water: cucumbers, carrot sticks, green beans, peppers. The percentage is of the water's weight. Firm vegetables take 2 to 3%. Cucumbers dilute the brine as they sit and take 3.5% or more; USDA work on commercial pickles uses 3.5% as the floor.

In a warm kitchen (above about 75 F) use the top of each range: more salt slows a ferment that heat speeds up.

Salt for common batches

7 rows
BatchSalt %Salt
One quart jar of sauerkraut (about 800 g cabbage)2%16 g
Same jar, warm kitchen2.5%20 g
5 lb cabbage (2.27 kg)2%45 g
1 quart of brine (946 g water)2.5%24 g
1 quart of cucumber brine3.5%33 g
1 liter of brine3%30 g
1 gallon of cucumber brine (3.79 kg water)3.5%132 g

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Why weigh the salt

A teaspoon of fine pickling salt weighs about twice what a teaspoon of flaky kosher salt does, so a recipe given in spoons can be off by half depending on the box. Weighing takes that out. A kitchen scale that reads single grams is the one tool every fermenting source here agrees on.

What the calculator assumes you have

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Questions

At 2.5%, about 24 grams; at 3.5% for cucumbers, about 33 grams. That is roughly 4 and 5.5 teaspoons of fine pickling salt.

2% of the cabbage's weight, 2.5% in a warm kitchen: 20 to 25 grams per kilogram, or about 3 tablespoons of canning salt per 5 pounds.

The NCHFP says it is safe for fermented pickles and only clouds the brine; some guides say iodine slows fermentation. Canning or pickling salt avoids the question.

This calculator uses the water's weight for a brine, the simpler and more common method. Some guides count the vegetables too, which gives a weaker brine at the same percentage.