Brine Calculator
Work out salt and sugar for a wet brine by water volume and target salinity, plus brining time by weight.
Salt to dissolve
120 g
For 2 L of water at 6% salinity. That's roughly 6.7 tbsp of table salt, plus 60 g of sugar.
Salt
120 g
Sugar
60 g
Water
2,000 g
Brining time
4h
How it works
A wet brine is just salty water, and the salt is what does the work — it seasons the meat all the way through and helps it hold moisture. The strength that matters is salinity: the weight of salt as a percentage of the water. Most brines land between 5% and 8%, and 6% is a reliable middle.
Tell the calculator how much water you're using and the salinity you want, and it multiplies the water weight by that percentage to give you the grams of salt. Water weighs about a gram per millilitre, so a litre is a thousand grams to work from. You can add a sugar percentage too, which rounds out flavour and helps browning.
It also estimates brining time from the meat's weight — roughly an hour per pound, floored so small cuts aren't over-salted and capped at a day so nothing turns to jerky. A couple of chicken breasts want an hour or two; a whole turkey is happy overnight. Rinse and pat dry before cooking.
Frequently asked questions
How much salt do I need per litre of water?
At a 6% brine, one litre of water needs 60 grams of salt. Scale it to your salinity: 5% is 50 g, 8% is 80 g. The calculator does the multiplication for whatever volume you enter.
Should I use table salt or kosher salt?
Weigh it and it doesn't matter — 60 grams is 60 grams either way. It only matters if you measure by volume, since kosher salt's bigger flakes mean fewer grams per spoon. Weighing is why this tool works in grams.
How long should I brine chicken or turkey?
Roughly an hour per pound. Chicken breasts need one to two hours, a whole chicken about four, and a turkey is best left overnight. Going much longer than a day at a normal salinity can make the meat mushy and too salty.