Brine Conversion Charts: Volume, Weight, Temperature, and Salt

Crystal shape. Diamond Crystal is made by the Alberger process and comes out as hollow pyramids that stack loosely: 2.8 g per teaspoon and 134 g per cup, from the 0.7 g per 1/4 teaspoon on its label. Morton Coarse Kosher is rolled into dense flat flakes: 4.8 g per teaspoon and 230 g per cup, from the 1.2 g per 1/4 teaspoon on its label. So a spoon of Morton carries about 1.7 times the salt of the same spoon of Diamond Crystal, and Morton's own conversion chart puts 1 teaspoon of table salt at 1 1/4 teaspoons of its kosher. Weigh salt and the difference disappears.

Yes, by weight, because dissolved in water they are the same sodium chloride. By volume you need less table salt: 1 tablespoon of Diamond Crystal is 8.4 g, which is 1.4 teaspoons of table salt (6 g per teaspoon); 1 tablespoon of Morton is 14.4 g, or 2.4 teaspoons of table salt. Use the salt row of the converter above or the salt conversion calculator for any amount. Iodized table salt works in a brine; the anti-caking agent can cloud it, which is why pickling salt exists.

A US customary cup is 236.6 ml (NIST SP 811). US nutrition labels use a rounded 240 ml legal cup, and the metric cup used in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and most modern British recipes is 250 ml. The old imperial cup, 10 imperial fluid ounces, is 284 ml, about 20% bigger than the US cup; you meet it in older British cookbooks. This page and every calculator on the site use the US customary cup. When a recipe's origin is unclear, the cup that matters least is the water and the one that matters most is the salt, so weigh the salt.

They are written differently, not measured differently. USDA FSIS publishes a single minimum internal temperature per food (145°F for whole cuts of pork with a 3-minute rest, 165°F for poultry), which is a temperature that kills the target bacteria almost instantly. The UK Food Standards Agency states the same idea as a time at temperature, 70°C for 2 minutes, and lists lower temperatures held for longer as equivalents. Both reach the same reduction in Salmonella and other pathogens. The temperature table on this page is USDA FSIS; if you cook to a time-at-temperature chart from elsewhere, follow it exactly.

To the gram if you can, because the measure that matters is the percentage. A 10% error on a 5% brine is 4.5 to 5.5%, still inside the 3.5 to 6% band the site uses for wet brines, so a kitchen scale that reads to 1 g is plenty. For equilibrium brining and curing, where the salt is a percentage of the meat, stay within about 5%, and for Cure #1 use a scale that reads to 0.1 g. Volume is where the errors come from: the same tablespoon holds 8.4 g of Diamond Crystal or 18 g of table salt, and a heaped spoon adds a third again. Over-salting is the worse mistake, so if you must guess, guess low.

Weight, whenever the ingredient is dry or the amount changes the result. A cup of salt is 134 g or 288 g depending on the box, a cup of flour is 120 g or 150 g depending on the scoop, and a scale does not care about either. Volume is fine for water and for anything you adjust to taste. For brining, curing, and fermenting, where a percentage point changes the result, weigh the salt every time; a scale that reads to 1 g costs less than the meat.

40 to 140°F (4 to 60°C), the range where bacteria multiply fastest. USDA FSIS says perishable food should spend no more than 2 hours in it in total, and only 1 hour when the air is above 90°F (32°C). For brining that means the brine and the meat stay at or below 40°F the whole time: chill the brine before the meat goes in, brine in the refrigerator or in a cooler with ice, and never on the counter. On the way up, cooking moves food through the zone, and holding cooked food keeps it above 140°F.

Yes; dissolved, they are sodium chloride like any other salt, and the flavor differences do not survive a brine. What changes is the weight per spoon and the share that is actually salt. Fine sea salt measures like table salt (6 g per teaspoon, per Morton's conversion chart). Himalayan pink is about 5.5 g per teaspoon fine and 5 g coarse, and about 97% sodium chloride, so it is weighed up a little; those figures are test-kitchen measurements, marked approximate in the table. Celtic grey sea salt is sold moist and is about 81% sodium chloride, so it needs about a fifth more by weight. Skip smoked, flavored, and herb salts, and never swap pink Himalayan salt for pink curing salt.

Use the converter above, one number at a time, or these factors: grams to ounces, divide by 28.35; milliliters to US cups, divide by 236.6; liters to US quarts, multiply by 1.057; Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8 and add 32. Kilograms to pounds, multiply by 2.205. The better move is to stop halfway: keep the metric weights, buy a scale, and convert only the oven temperature. A metric brine recipe is already in grams and liters, which is the form every calculator on this site works in.

Three usual causes. The salt conversion was wrong: a cup of table salt in a recipe written for Diamond Crystal is 2.1 times the salt. The brine was too strong for the time: 6% and above needs a shorter soak than 5%, and a cup of Morton per gallon is already 6.1%. Or it stayed in too long: wet brines never go past 24 hours, and thin cuts are done in under 2 hours. Rescue an over-brined piece by soaking it in cold water in the fridge for 30 to 60 minutes and skipping any salt in the cooking. Next time, weigh the salt, check the strength on the brine percentage calculator, and take the hours from the brining time calculator.