Took me three months to figure out my sauerkraut was too salty because my kitchen scale was off by 5 grams

I was adding what I thought was 2% salt by weight but after buying a new scale and testing it with a nickel, that 5 gram difference per cabbage head made every batch inedibly salty, has anyone else had a cheap scale mess up their brine ratios?

2 comments

2 Comments

wilson.emma28d ago

Funny you mention scales, my buddy once spent a whole weekend baking sourdough only to realize his scale was consistently adding 10 extra grams every time he tared. He kept wondering why his loaves turned out like hockey pucks. Turns out the cheap digital scale was just bad at zeroing out properly, so everything was off by just enough to mess with hydration levels. Took him dumping three batches of starter down the drain before he bought a new one for 15 bucks at Target. Sometimes a little gadget error can really wreck a whole project in weirdly sneaky ways.

uma30628d ago

Is 5 grams really enough to ruin a whole batch though? I mean yeah it changes the salt level a bit, but are we talking brine that makes you gag or just a little saltier than you wanted? Feels like we might be splitting hairs here.