Has anyone messed with making their own Sea Salt ?

[MongGrel]

It does not seem it would be difficult, just making sure you had clean sea water would be the biggest part of it I would imagine.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Sea-Salt

I might give it a go just to do it.

Just putting some 5 gallon buckets out or trays and letting it evaporate would work, I would think.

 

[Greenman]

I guess it's a good thing, but buying a box of salt is cheap, easy, and pretty much painless.

 

[MongGrel]

I guess it's a good thing, but buying a box of salt is cheap, easy, and pretty much painless.

It's not really exactly the same, and live right near the Gulf Coast here.

Of course I have iodized salt all ready, was more or less curious if anyone had done it themselves. Seems you could just flavor your own then like people do making rubs.

Was more curious if anyone all ready does this and what they might use in the process.

 

[lxskllr]

Never made it, but I wouldn't waste energy on it. I'd do it outside, and use the sun. The sun's free to operate.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm surprised the claimed yield is 3 ounces of salt per gallon of sea water, but I also wonder how long it would take to evaporate 1 gallon of water in the sun. Wide, flat vessels with a lot of surface area would be best and I suppose you'd have to experiment to see if there's an optimal depth of the water to optimize the rate of evaporation. My guess would be the shallower the better, which would mean constantly refilling the vessel(s). Could take you days or even weeks to get that 3 ounces.

Sounds about as interesting as watching ice melt. Pass.

 

[Mike64]

I'm surprised the claimed yield is 3 ounces of salt per gallon of sea water, but I also wonder how long it would take to evaporate 1 gallon of water in the sun.

I wonder if whoever wrote that blog post has ever actually done it? As a kid I lived way out on Cape Cod and even then (long before video games and the Internet)/there it never occurred to me (or anyone I knew or ever heard of) to try this personally, but according to the NOAA, the average salinity of seawater is approximately 3.5%, so even accounting for natural variation, 3 ounces does sound rather paltry. And on a hot day without dripping humidity and a decent breeze, a shallow tray full of sea water would evaporate pretty quickly, though you'd have to start stirring it after a lot of the water evaporates or the salt will crust over and slow the process way down...


But back to the OP, the basic process is of course so un-difficult it's hard to place it on a scale of "difficulty" at all. But if you do it in 5 gallon buckets, you'll be waiting a long time for salt. Dark-colored trays would of course be the most efficient method of sun-drying it. (Optional: protective screening and some sort of canopy to keep your salt/rubs from becoming insect- and possibly bird-dropping flavored...)

Personally, you'll have to add me to the list of those who don't see the attraction. As "science in action", or even as nearly-armchair "Slow Food-ism", it seems pretty low on the scale... Generic sea salt is cheap and everything else that goes into "rubs" is cheap compared to the cost of the pre-made end products, so I can certainly see the attraction of making one's own rubs - either/both to save some money or as entertainment (not to mention that I prefer them to be "salt-flavored" rather than "flavored salt"), but that doesn't really imply need to actually harvest the salt itself... I wouldn't at all mind touring a "fleur de sel" harvesting operation, but that stuff's taken from the surface of ponds along the coast (in the ground and/or maybe artificial) where the salt forms a thin surface layer as the salinity becomes high enough. As a traditional production method, it sounds pretty cool and is something I'd like to see at least once, but I wouldn't spend the time and energy trying to recreate even that "at home".

As for "water safe for fishing" being good enough for salt-making? Well, maybe if you're doing it on a purely experimental basis and won't be eating the stuff on a regular basis that would be "good enough"...