The Beginner’s Guide to Fermentation, part 2.

It all starts with that most common but prized of kitchen ingredients, salt.

But not all salt is created equal. Table salts often come with anti-caking agents that can negatively impact our ferments and lead to off flavours. Sea salt is my go-to, but then there’s the question of fine vs coarse. The finer a salt, the easier it will be to dissolve. This is great if you want to quickly make sure a ferment is stabilised, but coarse salts also have their place, dissolving more slowly, clumping less, and pulling moisture from ingredients at a gentler pace, which can help retain a firmer texture early on.

Despite their mineral differences, there is very little difference between using sea salt and rock salt in fermentation. In practice, the biggest differences come from processing and additives.

To calculate how much salt to use, measure the weight of everything going in the jar (ingredients, aromatics, and water) and multiply the weight by 0.02. This will give you the amount of salt you need to add.

Example:

1kg of shredded cabbage

1,000 × 0.02 = 20g of salt

But if I were to add 500g of water that would change how much salt I need, because the addition of water dilutes the salt.

1kg of shredded cabbage

500g of water

1,000 + 500 = 1,500

1,500 x 0.02 = 30g of salt

Now the fun part. Herb salts are a great way to infuse additional flavour, but it’s worth remembering that they’re not pure salt. They’re often diluted, typically somewhere around 70–90% salt depending on how they’re made, so if you rely on them alone, your effective salt level drops. A simple approach is to blend them with plain salt to keep your ferment stable while layering in flavour.

My favourite flavoured salts to use are citrus or smoked. Try a blend, there’s no reason not to build flavour from the very beginning.

If you’re new to fermentation, or you’ve been at it for years but fancy some new ideas, next up I’ll be sharing a beginner friendly recipe for your first ferment and how to use it in daily cooking. So follow along and keep an eye out for that.

#fermentation #flavour #salt #lactofermentation #ferment