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Calculators

Calculators that show their arithmetic

Each of these exists because the word "percent" means at least three different things in the sources this site quotes, and the difference between them is the difference between a ferment and a spoiled jar. Every one prints the line of arithmetic under the answer.

Salt on the weight of the vegetableDry-salting. Salt is a percentage of what you are fermenting, and the vegetable makes its own brine.Brine by weight of the finished solutionThe percentage a salinity meter reads. Salt over salt plus water, not salt over water.Brine by grams per 100 mL of waterWhat most written recipes mean, and it is not the same number.Salt on the total weight in the vesselVegetable plus water, salted together. The convention that holds the concentration steady whatever the ratio.Raising a brine that has fallenThe vegetable gives up its water and the brine weakens. This is how much salt puts it back.Fahrenheit and CelsiusThe USDA states its bands in Fahrenheit and the FAO bulletin states its optima in Celsius. Same ferment, two scales.

One conversion this site does not offer

Degrees salometer. The FAO bulletin gives four of its brine figures on that scale and this site could not source the definition of it to a published authority it was willing to cite. The factor is widely repeated and is probably right. Probably is not the standard a controlling number is held to here, so those figures are printed as the bulletin printed them and are not converted. If you can point at a citable definition, the corrections page explains how to send it.