Put your faith in salt and time
and trust that pickles will result;
Put your faith in time and salt.
Put your faith in time and salt –
Age gives heft to more than wine –
Put your faith in salt and time.
In time and salt put all your trust
– the salt and sour will keep it safe –
time and salt deserve your faith.
In time and salt put all your faith
discard the failures when you must
but keep your faith, and time, and trust.
Thom Eagle 
Thom, I know that you’re the pickling king. I’m currently looking at pickling beetroot, shallots and courgettes. Would you use the same brine for all, or would you vary for each? M
Do you mean fermenting or vinegar pickling? Fermenting beetroot is tricky, in my experience – it’s so sweet that it easily gets yeast attacks. So if you’re doing that I wouldn’t put sugar in the brine. Otherwise I tend to use a similar brine for all ferments – 35g each salt and sugar per litre.
And for vinegar pickling it just depends on how sweet you want it, but otherwise it’s pretty similar for everything. I’d dry-salt courgettes first to stop them going soggy, too.
Sorry Thom, gave you misleading information with my inaccurate use of ‘brine’. I’m essentially talking about vinegar pickling. Good steer on the courgette prep. Thanks.