Brine calculator
2 litres of water at 5% salinity take 100 grams of salt and 50 grams of sugar. Enter the water in litres, millilitres, US gallons or cups and the salinity you want for poultry, pork, fish or pickles. Free in your browser.
- Free
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Your data stays on your device
Run — free
Worked example
- Water
- 2
- Salinity
- 5
- Water unit
- L
- Water ml
- 2,000
- Water g
- 2,000
- Sugar pct
- 2.5
A wet brine is a measured bath of water, salt, and sugar used to season poultry, pork, fish, and pickled vegetables before roasting, smoking, or fermenting. Home cooks and commissary kitchens need the grams of salt and of sugar that match a chosen water volume and a target salinity percentage, not a one-size recipe that assumes a gallon jug or a sixteen-pound bird. This brine calculator takes a positive water volume in litres, millilitres, US gallons, or US cups, plus a non-negative salinity percent by weight of the water, and returns the grams of salt and of sugar to dissolve.
How salinity percent becomes grams of salt and sugar
A kitchen brine is a solution of salt—and usually sugar—in water, specified by a salinity percentage that tells you how many grams of salt sit in one hundred grams of that water. Because liquid water at kitchen temperature has a density of one gram per millilitre, the water volume you measure in a jug is also the water mass in grams once you convert litres, millilitres, US gallons, or US cups into millilitres.
This brine calculator uses that identity: water in millilitres becomes water in grams one-for-one; salt in grams equals water grams times salinity divided by one hundred; sugar in grams equals water grams times the sugar percentage divided by one hundred. A six percent brine on one US gallon of water uses the exact US gallon of three thousand seven hundred eighty-five point four one one seven eight four millilitres, so the salt and sugar masses stay reproducible across scales and APIs.
The method does not claim laboratory salinity for oceanography, kosher-flake packing density, or food-safety dwell times; it is a deterministic weight-for-weight kitchen scale so shopping lists, hotel pans, and recipe cards agree.
Where a brine calculator earns its keep
Picklers who fill a crock or jar by volume need salt grams that match a five or six percent equilibrium brine, not a turkey recipe scaled from bird weight. Home cooks wet-brining chicken pieces, pork chops, or a side of salmon often start from the water that fits the bag or hotel pan and a target salinity, then want sugar grams for browning without turning the bath into syrup.
Catering and commissary planners scale many litres of pickle or poultry brine for staff meals and need deterministic salt so prep sheets stay consistent across shifts. Culinary classes teach percent brine by showing that doubling the water doubles the salt; a pure oracle lets students check homework in seconds without debating cup densities. Prefer this capability when you already know water volume and salinity percent; it is not a turkey-by-weight recipe scaler, not a dry-brine salt-only calculator, and not a food-safety thermometer.
What you can do with it
Pickle crock or jar brine
Enter the water that fills your crock or jar and a five or six percent salinity to get salt and sugar grams for an equilibrium pickle brine.
Wet-brine poultry or pork by pan volume
Measure the water that fits the bag or hotel pan, choose a salinity percent, and dissolve the returned grams of salt and sugar before the meat goes in.
Catering and commissary batch sheets
Convert litres of brine water and a house salinity into deterministic salt and sugar so prep sheets stay consistent across shifts.
FAQ
How do I calculate salt and sugar for a brine?
Send a positive water volume and a non-negative salinity percent. Sugar percent defaults to half of salinity.
What does salinity percentage mean here?
Salinity is percent salt by weight of the water, not of the finished bath. Five percent on two litres of water is one hundred grams of salt, because two litres of water weigh two thousand grams at kitchen density.
What happens if salinity is negative?
A brine salinity percentage cannot be below zero, and the failure is not billed.
How much sugar goes in if I don't set a sugar percentage?
Half the salinity, the classic two-to-one salt-to-sugar ratio by weight. A 5% brine on 2 litres of water therefore takes 100 grams of salt and 50 grams of sugar, and you can set your own sugar percentage instead.
Can I measure the water in gallons or cups?
Yes. Litres, millilitres, US gallons and US cups are all accepted. The volume is converted to millilitres, and each millilitre counts as one gram of water before the percentages are applied.
Related tools
For developers — API access
Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.
API endpoint
Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.
Call it from your stack
curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/cook/brine \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"water":2,"salinity":5}'const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/cook/brine", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"water": 2,
"salinity": 5
})
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://api.kit.forhosting.com/cook/brine",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
json={
"water": 2,
"salinity": 5
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/cook/brine", false, stream_context_create([
"http" => [
"method" => "POST",
"header" => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
"content" => '{"water":2,"salinity":5}',
],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"water":2,"salinity":5}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/cook/brine", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)Example request
{
"water": 2,
"salinity": 5
}Example response
{
"task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
"type": "cook.brine",
"status": "queued",
"_links": {
"result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
}
}The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.
Pricing
Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.
Errors
| HTTP | Code | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
401 | unauthorized | Missing or invalid API key. |
402 | insufficient_balance | Your balance doesn't cover the task price. |
404 | unknown_type | That task type doesn't exist. |
429 | rate_limited | Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling. |
Technical notes
Sugar defaults to half the salt mass—the classic two-to-one kitchen ratio—unless you set sugar_pct yourself. Negative salinity fails with invalid_input instead of inventing a batch.
How salinity percent becomes grams of salt and sugar
When you omit sugar_pct, the sugar percentage defaults to half the salinity, which is the classic two-to-one salt-to-sugar mass ratio used in many wet brines for poultry, pork, and pickles: a five percent brine on two litres of water therefore dissolves one hundred grams of salt and fifty grams of sugar. Optional aromatics such as peppercorns, bay, garlic, or citrus are left to the cook; this endpoint only sizes the salt and sugar you dissolve into the water you already measured.
Input contract, response shape, and error behaviour
Example: two litres at five percent salinity with the default sugar ratio yields two thousand grams of water, one hundred grams of salt, and fifty grams of sugar. POST a JSON body with two required finite numbers: water (aliases water_volume, volume, amount, qty)—the brine water volume as a strictly positive finite number—and salinity (aliases salinity_pct, salt_pct, percent, pct, salt_percent)—the desired salt percentage by weight of the water, which must be finite and not negative. Optional water_unit (aliases unit, volume_unit, wu) is l by default; the published ids are l, ml, gal, and cup, and common spellings such as liter, litre, milliliter, gallon, and cups are accepted. Optional sugar_pct (aliases sugar_percent, sugar) is the sugar percentage by weight of the water; when omitted it defaults to half of salinity. Missing water or salinity, empty strings, non-finite values, and non-positive water fail with invalid_input naming the problem and are not billed. Negative salinity fails with a message that salinity must not be negative; negative sugar_pct is rejected the same way. An unknown water_unit string also fails with invalid_input. On success the body echoes water, water_unit, salinity, and sugar_pct; returns water_ml and water_g; returns salt_g and sugar_g as the grams to dissolve; and includes formula, method, and a one-line English message for UI copy. Failed validation does not consume prepaid balance.
Where a brine calculator earns its keep
Recipe apps and voice assistants can call a tiny parse endpoint when a user says two litres at five percent and expect grams back for a shopping list. Always refrigerate food while it brines, discard used brine, and cook to a safe internal temperature—those steps are outside the numeric scope of this endpoint but essential in the kitchen.
Technical questions
How is sugar determined if I only enter salinity?
sugar_pct defaults to half of salinity, the classic two-to-one salt-to-sugar mass ratio. Pass sugar_pct (including zero) when you want a different sweetness or a salt-only brine.
What does the brine calculator cost?
The browser tool is free. API requests use prepaid balance at $0.002 per successful call; invalid input is not billed.