New to this: Brine questions

[Chris.n.Goats]

1. Can you use Himalayan Pink Salt for brine? It is the only non iodine salt I can readily get here.
2. What do you do with the brine after use? one batch has a tablespoon vinegar, the other does not.

[MacGruff]

Your profile says you are in Ontario, look in the supermarket or where you shop for food, for Kosher Salt. That product does not contain iodine and is available widely. Baking area.

Good luck.

As to the brine, I do not add vinegar to it when I brine my cheeses, but after the brining stage, I filter out the milk solids and store it for another use. Note that you will probably need to add more salt every so often.

[mikekchar]

Yes, kosher salt, pickling salt or sea salt will all work.  Himalayan pink salt will also work (I've used it), but it's kind of expensive.

You'll want to add a bit of calcium chloride to your brine as well (less than you would use for the equivalent amount of milk).  Give it a quick taste to make sure you don't add too much because calcium chloride can be quite bitter.

You can store your bine in the fridge and reuse it indefinitely.  When I use brine (which I don't really do any more), I calculate how much salt the cheese will take up (usually your are aiming for 2% of the weight of the cheese) and add that to the brine to keep it topped up.  You'll know it's OK because some salt will remain undissolved.  You should pasteurise your brine before every use though (bringing it up to a boil is fine as well).  Listeria can apparently survive in a fully saturated brine (this is fairly recent research so most old-timers will not know about it).

Like I said, I no longer brine anything.  Dry salting is just easier and the difference is minimal.

[Chris.n.Goats]

Thanks for all the good tips!
I could not get kosher salt where I live, but I never thought of pickling salt. Stocked up on that.

Also do not have space in my fridge to store brine, but I had some one-gallon water containers which I had saved for gardening, so I filtered the brine into those and put it into the freezer. Just need to take it out well before use and boil it, I guess.