Kimchi calculator
Napa cabbage kimchi from one weighed recipe: brined quarters, a gochugaru paste with fish sauce, garlic and pear, three days out and then the fridge.
Napa cabbage kimchi in two stages: the quartered cabbage sits in a salt brine overnight, then it is coated in a paste of gochugaru, fish sauce, garlic, ginger and rice porridge with julienned radish, carrot, pear and scallions, and packed tight to ferment. Every row here is Sunny Lee’s weighed recipe for one 1.3 kg head.
How it works
The brine, which is not on the card
Per 1.3 kg head: 1.9 litres of water and 135 g of kosher salt, a 7% brine. The quarters sit in it under a weight for 12–14 hours at 13–24 °C, flipped twice, then get rinsed and squeezed. The brine is poured away, which is why it is not a row: it would inflate the jar. Scale it with the cabbage, 1.46 litres and 104 g per kilo. Maangchi salts dry instead: 72 g rubbed between the leaves of 2.7 kg, two hours.
The paste
Bloom 110 g of gochugaru in 120 ml of warm water. Cook 24 g of glutinous rice flour and 30 g of sugar in 240 ml of water into a paste, 3–4 minutes, and stir the gochugaru in. When cool, add 120 ml of fish sauce, 40 g of salted shrimp, 40 g of garlic and 30 g of ginger, then 100 g each of pear, daikon and carrot in batons and 115 g of scallions in 5 cm lengths. Spread it leaf by leaf, core included, and roll each quarter into a parcel.
Three days out, then cold
Packed tight in a 1-gallon (3.8 l) jar with the surface covered and weighted, three days at 13–24 °C in the dark, pressed down after the first day so it stays under its liquid. Then the fridge for at least two more days before eating, tasting daily from day five. It keeps two months, souring slowly; young kimchi is for the table, old kimchi for cooking.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- Serious Eats — Baechu Kimchi (Napa Cabbage Kimchi), Sunny Lee — The anchor, and the one reference recipe that weighs every ingredient: a 1.3 kg head brined 12–14 h in 1.9 l of water with 135 g of salt, then 110 g gochugaru / 24 g glutinous rice flour / 30 g sugar / 120 ml fish sauce / 40 g salted shrimp / 40 g garlic / 30 g ginger / 100 g each pear, daikon and carrot / 115 g scallions / 360 ml water. Three days at 13–24 °C, then the fridge.
- My Korean Kitchen — Kimchi Recipe (Napa Cabbage Kimchi) — The lean end of the paste bands on a 4 kg batch: 141 g gochugaru (3.5%), 42 g garlic (1%), 140 g carrot (3.5%) — and 540 g of radish (13.5%), the top of that band. Salted with 97 g sprinkled plus a dip in 3.8 l of brine with 285 g of salt.
- Maangchi — Traditional napa cabbage kimchi (tongbaechu-kimchi) — The dry-salting reference: 72 g of kosher salt worked between the leaves of 2.7 kg of cabbage (2.7%), two hours, turned every 30 minutes. The paste is measured in cups, so it sets no percentages here.
FAQ
Why so much more gochugaru than other recipes?
Sunny Lee’s 8.5% is the hot, red end. My Korean Kitchen uses 141 g on 4 kg of cabbage (3.5%), which is the bottom of the band on the row; Maangchi measures two cups and gives no weight.
Salted shrimp and fish sauce, both?
Every source uses both. The shrimp brings a deeper, funkier salt, the fish sauce the liquid, and together they are most of the salt in the paste.
Dry-salt or brine?
Both work. Serious Eats brines at 7% for 12–14 hours; Maangchi wets the cabbage and rubs 72 g of salt between the leaves of a 2.7 kg batch, two hours, turning every 30 minutes; My Korean Kitchen does both, 97 g sprinkled plus a dip in brine, six hours. The leaves are ready when the thick white part bends without snapping.
How much does one head make?
About 2.5 kg of kimchi from a 1.3 kg head once the paste is on, in a 1-gallon jar with room to press it down.