To make non-saturated salt brine:

1. Pour amount of cool 15°C water into brine container 
2. Choose your desired % Brine from column #1 of the table below.
3. Determine the corresponding weight of non-iodized salt you need per unit of water from column #2.
4. Scale up the weight of table salt to your volume.
5. Weigh that amount of salt, pour into water, and stir until dissolved.
6. Add enough vinegar to reach a pH of 5 or to roughly equalize pH with that of cheese, typically 1 teaspoon per litre water of standard 5% white (clear) vinegar.
7. Add 0.1% Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) to reduce cat ion exchange, typically 1 tablespoon/ litre water of 30% CaCl2 solution.

Brine Table

• This table is based on the water temp for your brine being at 15°C.

• The table only goes to 26% as at 26.395% brine is fully saturated and any additional salt will not dissolve.

• % weight of brine means % of total brine including salt - i.e. if you put dissolve 1 kg of salt in 5 litres of water, the brine will weigh 6 kg and you will have 1/6 = 16.7% brine. 

E.g. To make 5 litres of 16% brine the table below says 0.1905 kg salt/litre water for ~16% brine. Therefore, combine 5 litres water and 5 x 0.1905 = 0.9525 kg salt and stir until dissolved.

% Salt Kg        Salt / Litre Water
     0                            0
     2                            0.0204
     4                            0.0417
     6                            0.0638
     8                            0.0870
    10                           0.1111
    12                           0.1364
    14                           0.1628
    16                           0.1905
    18                           0.2195
    20                           0.2500
    22                           0.2820
    24                           0.3158
    26                           0.3513