Sea salt

Spent a day at Henley Beach having a picnic with some friends. The food was great and the company was awesome. The weather wasn't looking too friendly at first but thank goodness the clouds cleared later in the afternoon. This is the third beach I've been to since coming to Adelaide and I can't comment much since they all pretty much look the same to me.

I had recently came across a blog post about making your own salt. And since the sea was just right in front of me, I decided to give it a go. It was so simple, I wonder why I've never thought about it. All you have to do is collect the sea water, filter it and boil till you get salt! It does take some time for all the water to evaporate though.

Top left: After simmering for 2hr, you'll start seeing the NaCl crystal starting to form.
Bottom left/Top right: All the water have nearly evaporated, leaving behind solid crystals
Bottom right: The damp salt before it's been left to dry 

I wanted to get large salt crystals like Maldon's and so I made sure to turn down the heat to a simmer once half of the liquid was boiled away. This is to ensure that the crystal formation won't be agitated from the vigorous boiling action. After simmering the water for nearly 2 hours, I had to gently scoop up the crystals so that it won't break and transferred them to a bed of paper towels. Left it to dry overnight and woke up to beautiful salty crystals glimmering in the morning sun.

I ended up with about 2 tablespoons worth of salt from a litre of sea water. Taste wise, it's salty. Really salty. Not quite the fleur de sel from Guérande but more like henley de sel.  I didn't manage to achieve the crunchy texture I was hoping for but nonetheless I'm pretty proud of it. It's not everyday you get to tell someone you made your own salt.