Valdill

Home pickles: salt, time, place.

You put three kilos of cucumbers into a three-litre jar. How much water will fit around them, how much of your salt is that, and when will it be ready on a November balcony? Valdill answers those three questions for cucumbers, sauerkraut, tomatoes, soaked apples and the other things that are salted rather than cooked.

Coming soon to the App Store

For the jar on your kitchen counter

Valdill is for people who salt a few jars a season from a family recipe and measure by eye. It does not replace the recipe. It does the arithmetic the recipe leaves out, and it keeps track of a jar that ripens faster in a warm kitchen and slower in a cold cellar.

What it does

Build the jar

Drag cucumbers, cabbage, garlic, dill and oak or horseradish leaves into a drawn jar from half a litre to a barrel. The brine is worked out from how tightly the jar is packed.

Salt in your own spoons

Grams, and tablespoons of the salt you actually use: coarse rock salt and fine table salt weigh very differently. Sauerkraut is salted dry, by the weight of the cabbage.

Ripens where it stands

Put the jar on the kitchen shelf, a sunny windowsill, the balcony, the cellar or in the fridge. Outdoor places follow your city's real temperature, and moving the jar moves its date.

Today's jobs

Pierce the cabbage, skim the foam, top up the brine, move it to the cold, bring it in before a frost: one short list instead of remembering.

Taste teaches the next jar

Three taps when a jar is finished: salt, sourness, crunch. Next time the same recipe suggests a weaker or stronger brine.

Sixteen starting points

Half-sour and barrel cucumbers, kovászos uborka, ogórki kiszone, sauerkraut with carrot or cranberries, green tomatoes, soaked apples, wild garlic and more.

How it looks

The pantry screen: jars standing on a windowsill, in the kitchen, on a balcony, in the fridge and in a cellar, each with its ready date.
The pantry, with every jar where it really stands.
Building a three-litre jar of barrel cucumbers with the brine volume, salt in grams and spoons, and expected crunch beside it.
Building a jar: brine, salt and spoons.
One jar up close with its stage, ready date and the temperature of its place.
One jar: stage, date and temperature.

What stays on your iPhone

  • No account. Your jars, logbook and settings are kept only on your iPhone.
  • If you choose a city, only that city's coordinates are sent to Open-Meteo to fetch the temperature.
  • No ads, no analytics and no tracking. Details are in the privacy policy.