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Appreciation post: How I stopped guessing and started tracking my salt brine ratios
For years I just tossed salt into my sauerkraut crock by feel, like some kind of folk tradition passed down wrong. Last month I finally caved and bought a $15 kitchen scale after my third batch turned into a slimy mess. Turns out I was using about half the salt needed for a proper 2% brine by weight, which explains why good bacteria couldn't win the battle. Now I weigh my cabbage at 5 pounds, add exactly 1.6 ounces of salt, and everything comes out crisp and tangy every time. Has anyone else dealt with that frustrating period where you think you know the ratio but your ferment keeps telling you otherwise?
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the_riley4mo ago
Your math is actually a little off for a proper 2% brine. 5 pounds of cabbage is 80 ounces, so 2% of that is 1.6 ounces of salt, which is what you said. But for a brine ferment where you're adding water, the salt percentage needs to be based on the total weight of the cabbage plus the water, not just the cabbage alone. So if you're adding, say, 2 cups of water (about 16 ounces), your total weight is 96 ounces, and 2% of that is 1.92 ounces, so you're actually a bit under. I learned this the hard way when my pickles came out soft and I realized my brine was only like 1.5% because I forgot to account for the water.
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kevinallen4mo ago
Weigh everything together next time, it saves the guesswork.
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abbyf794mo ago
The_riley is being way too serious about this. We're talking about sauerkraut here not rocket science. A fraction of an ounce of salt isn't going to ruin your batch unless you're measuring with a jeweler's scale. I've made kraut for years just eyeballing the salt and it's always come out crunchy and tasty. Some people act like if your brine isn't perfectly 2.000% it'll explode or something. The whole point of fermentation is that it's forgiving and old school, not some lab experiment. If you're that worried about soft pickles, maybe check your water or chop your veg bigger. Obsessing over exact salt percentages down to the decimal is just overkill for home cookin'.
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