Kitchen Numbers · Chapter 12

Kitchen Percent Calculator

A percent is always a percent of something. Name the base first: the water or the whole jar, the flour or the dough, the squash as bought or as used.

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Opens on Chapter 12’s example: Dami’s 2% brine for 1 liter of water and 600 g of vegetables.

1. Brine
2. Yield
3. Two changes in a row
Enter your numbers, then press Work it out.

How it works

Salt on the water alone is water × percent; on everything in the jar (the vegetables give up water too) it’s (water + vegetables) × percent. Fine table salt is about 6 g a teaspoon; coarse salts weigh much less a spoon, so weigh them. Yield = usable ÷ as bought, and you buy what you need ÷ yield. Two changes multiply rather than add: 20% less and then 50% more is 0.8 × 1.5 = 1.2, not 1.3.

From the book, Chapter 12. 2% of 1,000 g of water is 20 g of salt; of the whole jar, 32 g. Squash that trims from 32 oz to 22 oz is 68.75% usable, so 48 oz usable means buying 69.8 oz (4.4 lb). 20% less sugar and then 1 1/2 times the recipe is × 1.2: 180 g from 150 g. Paz’s water is 68% of the flour but 39.8% of the dough. Every chapter and its calculator →

Amounts can be typed as 3, 0.75, 3/4, 1 1/2 or 1½. They’re worked as exact fractions and written as a cook measures them: cups in quarters or thirds, then tablespoons, then teaspoons to the nearest eighth. Everything stays in your browser: no sign-up, nothing stored or sent.