Brine Calculator
Salt in grams and spoons for any brine percentage — wet brine, fermenting or equilibrium dry brine
Enter the water and the salt percentage to get the salt in grams, ounces and tablespoons of table, Diamond Crystal kosher or fine sea salt. Most recipes give the percentage of the water's weight: 1 litre of water weighs 1,000 g, so a 2% brine is 20 g of salt. If the percentage is of the finished brine, it is 20.4 g. Equilibrium mode adds the weight of the meat or vegetables, for dry brining and ferments.
Salt for common brine percentages
| Brine | Per litre | Per US quart | Per US gallon | Table salt per quart | Diamond kosher per quart |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2% | 20 g | 18.9 g | 75.7 g | 1 tbsp | 2.4 tbsp |
| 3% | 30 g | 28.4 g | 113.6 g | 1.6 tbsp | 3.5 tbsp |
| 3.5% | 35 g | 33.1 g | 132.5 g | 1.8 tbsp | 4.1 tbsp |
| 5% | 50 g | 47.3 g | 189.3 g | 2.6 tbsp | 5.9 tbsp |
| 6% | 60 g | 56.8 g | 227.1 g | 3.1 tbsp | 7.1 tbsp |
| 10% | 100 g | 94.6 g | 378.5 g | 5.2 tbsp | 11.8 tbsp |
Salt by volume: Salt (table) 18.3 g per tablespoon, Kosher Salt (Diamond Crystal) 8 g per tablespoon, Salt (fine sea salt) 16.3 g per tablespoon. Table salt 292 g per cup from USDA FoodData Central; Diamond Crystal kosher 128 g per cup from the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart. Water: 1 ml weighs 1 g; US quart 946 ml and US gallon 3,785 ml (NIST Handbook 44).
Frequently asked questions
How much salt for a 5% brine in a quart of water?
47.3 g: about 2.6 tablespoons of table salt or 5.9 tablespoons of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
What is an equilibrium brine?
Salt is a percentage of the food plus the water, so the food ends up at exactly that salt level. A dry brine of 2 kg of meat at 1% is 20 g of salt.