r/fermentation • u/TravellingBeard • 12h ago

Does this revised rule-of-thumb on salt % make sense?

Assuming the goal is 2% minimum:

  1. If you're making a mash or kimchi/sauerkraut, where the veggies make their own liquid: 2% salt by weight of ingredients alone.
  2. If you're fermenting very watery veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, etc) veggies in brine: 2% salt by weight of ingredients and water together, to handle the osmosis and prevent dilution to less than 2%.
  3. If fermenting everything else, usually denser veggies, use 3% of weight of water. Reason is denser veggies will still leach out some liquid to slightly decrease salinity, but not enough osmosis to put it below 2%.

Is this a good way to approach this?

EDIT: seems I've overthought it. Keep away from veggie weight when using a brine.

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19

u/themadengineer 12h ago

I have an even simpler approach: I just do 2% salt by weight of ingredients, always. If that includes veggies & water, it’s calculated on the weight of those ingredients. If it’s veggies by themselves, then it’s based on the weight of the veggies.

If I’ve miscalculated and I need to add more brine it is similarly easy: make a 2% brine solution and then add whatever amount I need.

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u/Aristogiton1 12h ago

I can't remember when I added water to a ferment. It's always just the veg and salt.

But then, I just do sauerkraut and kimchi. Occasionally a carrot and parsnip mix.

I think it's totally different when you're doing whole cucumbers in brine, but they're so cheap to buy it's not worth the effort.

2

u/themadengineer 9h ago

I do spicy carrot sticks in a brine 😋
When you do carrot and parsnip mix, how do you prepare it?

5

u/Harmonic_Gear 11h ago

technically you want just 2% of all water content (including the water from the veg) because the dry substance doesn't participate in the calculation of water potential

but its ridiculous to calculate that so we just do 2% of everything because a huge percentage of the weight of the veg is coming from the water anyway

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u/Albino_Echidna Food Microbiologist 12h ago

No, stick with 1&2. Some fermentations do better at as high as 5% of the weight of all ingredients. 

You should never use produce weight alone, so point 3 is incorrect no matter the %.

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u/villainousarrow_7 12h ago

Point 3 is the one that feels off to me too. Measuring salt against just the water weight when you've got a jar full of solid veg doesn't really track, the brine's gonna pull stuff out and change the concentration either way. I do everything by total weight (veg + water) and just bump the percentage based on what i'm fermenting, keeps it simple.

0

u/Ok-Squirrel-445 11h ago

I understand the purpose of the brine is to protect the surface against undesirables while lacto buildup then ph drops low enough to seal the deal. So I can see why it will work. I put 3% all weight and it’s happy active tiny bubbs.

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u/picklehoot 8h ago

I personally always use total weight. I used to play around and make some things saltier and some things less salty, but I've settled on 2.5% across the board.

Here's a how-to I wrote up if it helps

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u/babytotara 4h ago

Brine concentration should always be calculated on the entire system volume.