Making Sea Salt on the Log Fire
Recently we ran out of salt! We don’t use a lot of salt for the table but mostly for preserving meat and fish, as a cleaning product and for making salt circles for protection against ghosts.
As we are aiming to be as self sufficient as we can, and have amazingly clear and clean seawater all around our little North Sea island, we decided to give making some sea salt a go.
This quick video shows how and what we did - but further details can be found below!
As we are aiming to be as self sufficient as we can, and have amazingly clear and clean seawater all around our little North Sea island, we decided to give making some sea salt a go.
This quick video shows how and what we did - but further details can be found below!
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A quick trip to the local beach was in order to fill a mason jar with the sparkling sea water, followed by passing the water through a coffee filter to remove the few floating pieces of seaweed that I had trapped in the jar. We had about half of a liter of water - in hindsight, I should have grabbed more.
Once the water was ready, we needed to light the log fire - as it’s mid February, the fire is on most evenings so there was no extra cost involved with the salt making process.
The salt was placed into two shallow aluminium baking trays and placed on the hot log fire. In hindsight, and thanks to people’s input - I would use a different material for the pan next time. Salt water can corrode the aluminium, and release harmful toxins. However, for the occasional use, it shouldn’t be too harmful.
The sea water came to a slow and gentle boil, and after a couple of hours most of the water had evaporated away, leaving behind a damp white deposit of salt. This was scraped into a ceramic dish and placed on the slightly cooler side of the log fire, we didn’t want the salt to dry out completely, yet not to burn.
After the salt was completely dry, it was ground down in a pestle and mortar before being placed into an airtight jamjar.
All in all, the ½ liter of seawater gave a return of about ¼ a jam jar of seasalt. Not a bad ratio of return at all!
Once the water was ready, we needed to light the log fire - as it’s mid February, the fire is on most evenings so there was no extra cost involved with the salt making process.
The salt was placed into two shallow aluminium baking trays and placed on the hot log fire. In hindsight, and thanks to people’s input - I would use a different material for the pan next time. Salt water can corrode the aluminium, and release harmful toxins. However, for the occasional use, it shouldn’t be too harmful.
The sea water came to a slow and gentle boil, and after a couple of hours most of the water had evaporated away, leaving behind a damp white deposit of salt. This was scraped into a ceramic dish and placed on the slightly cooler side of the log fire, we didn’t want the salt to dry out completely, yet not to burn.
After the salt was completely dry, it was ground down in a pestle and mortar before being placed into an airtight jamjar.
All in all, the ½ liter of seawater gave a return of about ¼ a jam jar of seasalt. Not a bad ratio of return at all!