Quick Pickle Brine Calculator

How the calculator works

Every recipe in the list is written for a set weight of vegetables: 460 g of daikon for chicken mu, 8 ounces of young ginger for gari, 8 pounds of cucumbers for dill pickles. The calculator divides your weight by that and multiplies every ingredient by the result.

factor = your vegetable weight / the recipe’s vegetable weight

For 700 g of daikon, chicken mu scales by 700 / 460 = 1.52, so the 150 g of sugar becomes about 228 g.

Nothing is changed on its own. The vinegar, water, sugar and salt all move together, so the balance the recipe writer chose stays the same. That matters most for the two canned recipes: NCHFP says not to alter vinegar, food or water proportions in a tested recipe.

Counted items such as carrots, dill heads and gardenia pods round to the nearest half.

The recipes

Chicken mu. The cubed, sweet and sour radish served with Korean fried chicken. Hungry Huy’s version is weighed in grams: 150 g sugar, 165 g white vinegar, 165 g water and 2.6 g salt per 460 g of radish, whisked together without cooking. Ready after 8 hours in the fridge.

Danmuji. The yellow radish pickle in gimbap. Kimchimari simmers 250 ml water, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon Korean sea salt and 1/4 cup rice vinegar, pours it hot over a pound of radish and adds dried gardenia for color. It needs about a week in the fridge and keeps for weeks or months.

Do chua. The carrot and daikon pickle in banh mi. America’s Test Kitchen salts and sugars the shredded vegetables for 30 minutes, presses them, then adds a brine of 3/4 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup water, 1/3 cup sugar and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Ready in 30 minutes, it keeps up to a week.

Gari. Sushi ginger. Just One Cookbook salts and blanches 8 ounces of thinly sliced young ginger, then covers it with hot sweet vinegar made from 1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar, at least 1/2 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Pickle for 4 hours or more.

Asazuke. Japanese salt-pickled cucumber with no vinegar at all. The salt is 2 percent of the cucumber weight, so 5 g for 250 g of cucumbers, with a little julienned ginger. One to two hours in the fridge is enough.

Dill and bread-and-butter pickles. Two tested canning recipes from NCHFP, included for anyone pickling cucumbers in bulk.

Worked example

You bought a 1.2 kg Korean radish and want to make danmuji with half of it and chicken mu with the rest.

Danmuji, 600 g of radish:

1. Factor: 600 / 454 = 1.32.
2. Water: 250 ml x 1.32 = 330 ml.
3. Sugar: 1/2 cup x 1.32, which the calculator shows as 2/3 cup.
4. Rice vinegar: 1/4 cup x 1.32 = about 1/3 cup.
5. Gardenia: 3 pods x 1.32 = 4 pods, rounded to the nearest half.

Chicken mu, 600 g of radish:

1. Factor: 600 / 460 = 1.30.
2. Sugar: 150 g x 1.30 = 196 g.
3. White vinegar and water: 165 g x 1.30 = 215 g each.
4. Salt: 2.6 g x 1.30 = 3.4 g.

Rules for the canned recipes

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is strict about acidity in canned pickles, because a uniform level of acid is what prevents botulism.

• Use white distilled or cider vinegar of 5 percent acidity.
• Do not change the proportions of vinegar, vegetables or water, and do not use a vinegar of unknown acidity.
• Use canning or pickling salt. Anti-caking agents in other salts can cloud the brine, and flake salt varies too much in density to measure reliably.
• Trim a 1/16 inch slice from the blossom end of each cucumber.

Tips and common mistakes

Weigh the vegetables after trimming. The recipes are written for peeled radish, sliced ginger and trimmed cucumbers.

Check which salt the recipe means. Gari and asazuke use Diamond Crystal kosher salt, which is lighter by volume than table salt. Just One Cookbook says to use half the volume if you are using table salt.

Let hot brine cool slightly before pouring into glass. Just One Cookbook warns that just-boiled liquid can crack a jar.

Use young ginger for gari if you can find it. Regular ginger works, but Just One Cookbook warns it will be very spicy.