Vegetable · fruit vegetable

Green (Unripe) Tomato

Unripe green tomatoes only. Ripe tomatoes are too acidic + too soft to lacto-ferment cleanly — they turn to mush and risk mold. Green tomato pickling is a Russian and Eastern European preservation tradition.

Salt calculator

Enter your vegetable weight and a salt percentage. We return the exact salt mass in grams, plus teaspoons for each common grain.

grams
%

Grain matters: one teaspoon of Diamond Crystal weighs half as much as one teaspoon of fine sea salt. Weigh in grams when you can.

40g salt
7.03 tsp 2.34 tbsp 1.41 oz

Based on Fine sea salt at 5.69 g/tsp.

Flavour-forward. Ferment will be slower; brine will taste salty. Good for pickles and hot-sauce mashes that need long shelf life.

All salt grains
GrainGramsTeaspoonsTablespoons
Diamond Crystal kosher40 g14.084.69
Morton kosher40 g8.332.78
Fine sea salt40 g7.032.34
Pickling / canning40 g7.272.42
Default salt
4.00 %
Salt range
3.50% – 5.00%
Time @ 68 °F
10.0 days
Target pH
3.80
Water content
~94%
Preferred styles
brine pickle russian, torshi

Technique

Firm green tomatoes, whole or halved. 4% brine + 2 garlic cloves + dill flower heads + 1 bay leaf + 3 black peppercorns per pint. Cold ferment: 1 week at 60°F then transfer to fridge for 2 more weeks.

Source: Sandor Katz — Wild Fermentation (green tomatoes).