How Is Salt Produced?
Have you ever wondered how salt is made? It can be naturally occurring, due to the evaporation of seawater, which leaves salt deposits that can be easily collected. This is probably how early humans first encountered the mineral sodium chloride and began using it to preserve food. Salt production is done in three ways – through seawater evaporation, rock salt mining and brining.
These days the modern method of salt production replicates the natural one, but at scale. Seawater is pumped into large evaporation ponds where the natural process of solar evaporation can take place aided by the wind. This requires a constant high temperature, long exposure to the sun and low rainfall. For this reason, the commercial production of salt is concentrated in areas around the Mediterranean, in Africa or in the southern coastal states of the USA.
Seawater naturally contains high salt content, but the salt yield from the water can be increased by the process of salt brining. This involves pumping seawater underground to dislodge and dissolve salt deposits in the underlying bedrock. The saltwater is then surfaced and treated with vacuum evaporation to remove mineral impurities, before the brine is then pumped into shallow ponds or salt bed. Most table salt is produced in this way and as it produces nearly pure sodium chloride salt crystals, it is inexpensive and effective.
Rock salt is also present in the underlying bedrock and is located in veins underground. The salt is the remnants of bodies of water that have long since dried up, leaving the rock salt deposits behind. The salt is mined in the traditional way, using dynamite to blast off large boulders of salt, which are then crushed before being sent to the surface. As rock salt usually contains large amounts of impurities, it is generally used for industrial purposes, like de-icing roads.
Regular table salt is the most common salt you can find as a condiment for your food, but there is a myriad of different flavoured and specialised salts, including sea salt like Maldon sea salt, which is made using tidal movements in England, all with different flavouring effects for different foods.
Salt has always been a foundational substance for human civilisation and many of the oldest human settlements were established because of their proximity to salt beds or salt mines. Salt has been used to cure and preserve food for millennia as well as a currency and crucial trading commodity. Today salt is much easier to produce at scale meaning it is considerably less valuable, but no less important to the way we eat. Pass the salt.
Sea Salt
Salt accounts for about 3.5 percent of the world's oceans. It is naturally produced when shallow ponds and bays dry up in the sun and the wind and large salt crystals are left behind where the salty water once was. When producing sea salt on an industrial scale, seawater is placed in large "concentrating ponds" to allow efficient evaporation from the sun and the wind. The manufacturing of sea salt can only be performed in areas with low rainfall in order for enough time to pass for evaporation. For this reason, sea salt is often produced in dry climates such as the Mediterranean and Australia.
Rock Salt
Rock salt (also known as halite) is present in the rocky under layers of the Earth's surface and can be extracted through deep-shaft mining. These large deposits of salt are the result of ancient underground waterways that have long since dried up.
Rock salt is extracted through dynamite, similar in fashion to the mining of any other mineral. Once it is brought to the Earth's surface, it is crushed and used for industrial and other non-food purposes. This type of salt contains many minerals and other impurities.
Salt Brines
While the ocean is a natural salt brine, hydraulic mining (or solution mining) of salt involves pumping water below the earth's surface to dissolve salt deposits and create a salt brine. This brine is then pumped to the surface and evaporated to create salt. The salty brine may be treated prior to evaporation to reduce mineral content, yielding a nearly pure sodium chloride crystal. This method is inexpensive, has a high yield, and produces a very clean salt. Most table salt is produced with this method.
Besides being the only mineral you eat, salt is one of the fundamental catalysts of food chemistry. Salt is of course salt. Aside from the elements that make salt, it is always the same no matter how it is packaged. Artisan salts have their distinctive flavors because of their impurities. Just as you don’t want to drink a nice glass of distilled water, you may not want to mix up a brine from certain “kinds” of salt. It all has to do with two factors. How coarse is your salt and what did they add to it in the box?
Crystal Sizes
Salt comes to you in crystals. These crystals can be of different sizes depending on how the salt was prepared. Everyday table salt tends to be of very specific crystal size. Coarse, kosher, sea and other salts come in different crystal sizes. Now, we know what you are thinking. What difference does it make? One, the larger the crystal the faster and easier salt will dissolve in water, but the slower it will dissolve on the surface of meats. Two, the smaller the crystals the heavier salt is by volume. Now, that’s the real key here.
Size Matters
Let us explain. One cup of normal, everyday table salt can weigh twice as much as some brands of kosher salt. So imagine that you have a cookie recipe that calls for 1 tablespoon of kosher salt and you put in one tablespoon of table salt. You just added twice as much salt as necessary. You could end up with some salty cookies. Similarly, when we mix up brines to make a better turkey (pork tenderloin, chicken, etc.) we need to make sure that we add just the right amount of salt. We do this by weight, not by volume.
Which Salt
can weigh half as much as typical table salt by volume. Surprisingly, many times kosher salt isn’t as consistent by weight. So why use it? Kosher salt is very pure salt. No additives are added to prevent caking and no iodine is added to keep your thyroid happy. This means it gives us one of the purest options to put salt into our brine. We choose the flavors, not someone else. If you want to use a different kind of salt, that’s perfectly up to you, just weigh it before you use it.
How Much Salt?
The traditional brine is made from a ratio of 1 cup of salt to 1 gallon of water. This is based on table salt. One cup of table salt weighs in at 10 ounces. So we want 10 ounces of salt (by weight) per gallon of water. Kosher salts can weigh between 5 to 7 1/2 ounces per cup, so in these cases, we would need between 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups of kosher salt per gallon of water. The two most popular brands of kosher salt weigh in like this: Morton Kosher = 7 1/2 ounces per cup and Diamond Crystal Kosher = 5 ounces per cup.
So regardless of the salt, you prefer, choose a salt that is pure for your next brine. Once you have the basic formula together you can add your sugars, herbs, spices and whatever else you put in your brine.
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