A buddy told me my brine ratio was way off and I finally fixed it

Ngl, I've been doing ferments for about 2 years and always just eyeballed the salt. My friend Jake came over last week and watched me set up a batch of hot sauce. He asked if I ever measured and I said nah, it's fine. He told me to weigh everything, salt included, and aim for 2.5% of the total weight of water and veggies. I tried it with some jalapenos and garlic, and the texture and taste are way better now. No more mushy peppers or weird floaty bits. Has anyone else here switched from eyeballing to weighing and noticed a big difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

caseyrivera17d ago

Your 2.5% ratio is solid, but actually you gotta weigh just the water, not the veggies. Salt dissolves into the water, so the veggies don't really absorb it the same way. If you include the veggie weight, you end up with less salt than needed, which is probably why your stuff was getting mushy before. I did the same thing when I first started measuring. Ended up with too little salt and the ferment got sluggish. So keep doing what you're doing, just weigh the water separate and go from there.

mason.mary17d ago

My buddy Jen tried this method after ruining three batches of pickles. She was using the total weight like you were, veggies plus water, and everything came out limp. Once she switched to just weighing the water, her ferments got crisp and stayed active way longer. She said it was a total game changer for her too.