Fermentation Support Forum

Does anyone know how much salt Cabbage absorbs from a brine? Even a ballpark figure.

Just trying to work out my salt intake as I am now completely addicted to Kimchi.

I think the way it works is that the cabbage doesn't absorb any of the salt. The salt causes fluid to flow across the cabbage's cell walls, out into the brine, to try and dilute the solution. However, if you're roughly kneading salt and cabbage (more typical with kraut than kimchi), it probably physically pushes some in. And of course, however you cause salt and cabbage to interact, unless you carefully rinse it, there's going to be some clinging to the surface.

I realize this may be useless since you're trying to calculate dietary intake, but it's all I have.

Mine doesn't produce enough brine to pour much of anything off, usually. So the amount of salt in the finished product is whatever I put in it.

Wait, I usually do have a small amount of fluid left in the jar when I finish the cabbage. I suspect you could do something with weight and specific gravity to find out how much salt is in that and subtract it from the amount you put in.

Still, it's no more than about a tablespoon of salt per quart divided by how ever many servings that makes for you.