How to make salt from sea water

I made my own flakey sea salt from sea water! Here I show you the simple process for how you can make your own salt at home.
This was inspired by a recent trip to France and the traditional salt farming in Noirmoutier. So when I returned to the UK on a visit to Wales I collected sea water and went about making my own sea salt from scratch.
Full method / recipe bellow

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Video Timestamps -

00:00 Intro
1:16 France & Traditional Salt Farming
3:20 Homemade Sea Salt Method
6:08 Using your homemade salt

Method

Collect sea water from somewhere you are sure the water is clean & unpolluted. Then Filter this sea water to remove any sand particles.

Reduce the salt water to about 1/6 of its original weight.
So 6 litres will be reduced down to 1 litre.

Put this concentrated sea water mixture in a low oven or dehydrator - at around 80C for around 8 hours / overnight, until the salt crystals start to form.

You’ll see large pieces of salt crystals forming. Gently remove these from the remaining water then finally put this salt back in that low oven or dehydrator for a further couple of hours to just fully dry off the salt.

Store as you would any other salt - in a sealed container.

[JollyLifeU]

Oh, I love homemade sea salt. I make it every time I go on holiday somewhere close to a sea that looks clean. It is also nice to compare salts from different locations (seas). I also went to south of France this summer and visited the salt farm in Gressin, and similar to you, Eddie, by looking at how they make it, got the idea to make it slower to get some crystals formed. I did it the same as you to the point of getting to the last 1/6th, and then covered a shallow pan with aluminium foil and transferred the condensed liquid in it at very low heat on the smallest hob, turning it off and on until almost all water was gone. I have still got a lot of crystals and it was probably for 3-4 hours in total. It looks absolutely stunning in the jar actually, snow white and glorious.

[SeniorMoistener]

I'm vaguely concerned about concentrating dangerous things from the sea water in a way that you wouldn't notice except that there's liters in each handful. But, I don't really have any data on this. If it's not a concern, I'm a big fan of this idea.

[drewkilkenny]

I use my greenhouse in the summer to evaporate the water, it take a few days but is totally free the suns heat does all the work

[viixengirrrrl]

I live on the coast of Maine. I intend to try this to make Christmas gifts for my loved ones, who live here too.

[amandacoganbarber]

Hi Eddie, this is a nice video so thanks for making this. I found your video as I was looking to see if the way I'm making salt is safe and if I'm missing an important part of the process. I'm originally from Newton-le-Willows bordering greater Manchester but now live on a boat in the Mediterranean after sailing from the UK. The meds salinity is crazy, especially here in the eastern med and I have just read it's at around 40 percent salt in the summer! Salt keeps encrusting our boat and the windows get thick with big flakes really quickly so I decided to make our own salt! I have already started to collect sea water and I've just got around a teaspoon from a small amount left on a plate outside overnight which was an experiment, so now I'm scaling things up! It's so saline here I float and don't have to swim at all, so it's so easy for me to make salt here and it feels good to produce it myself although the sun is doing all the work for me so I'm lucky! I'm going to stock up now so that when we sail out of the med we'll have a good supply!

[dmroliveira]

We live very close to the sea in Portugal and we always bring a big bottle of water that we put on a tray and leave to dry in the sun. It's a really slow process but it's kind of fun raking the crystals to the side and adding more sea water do make it really concentrated. It makes the most amazing salt. (Here it's over 100°F during the day in the Summer, so now it's much quicker!)
Just remember that If you want to do this outside you should get a glass tray with a cover to prevent dust from accumulating but find a cover that allows the vapour to exit.

[maryannechilton]

At the beach now and will definitely try the experiment. Thank you! Perfect timing.

[leanoradames]

Amazing! We will never run out of sea water!

[pastorchrismullis]

Great video! I just made a video where I made salt from a recent trip to the ocean in Saint Simons Island, Georgia in the USA. I made granular salt, but I think next time I will make flake salt and try your method. I love being knowing I made it myself and I always remember my trips to the ocean whenever I taste the salt I made in my food.

[fearlesscreative]

Loved this video, we are definitely going to try this. Thanks

[percolator.]

Great video! if you are worried about any nasties in the sea water i would suggest giving the crystals a wash in ice cold ethanol, when you place the crystals in the sieve to drain. This should remove trace organic materials.

[MichaelGarstang]

Really cool. Especially as I'm starting to hear about micro plastic-free alternatives 😟

[Tovkal]

Nice to know this can be done! I always think that making ingredients at home (salt in this case) is never worth it either financially or time wise. In this case I think it could be ok time wise, if you make salt for a whole year or something, but you would need free energy (solar panels) for it to make sense financially. Anyway, great video 👍

[senyk]

Another incredibly informative and beautiful video, thanks for creating this!

[jorts]

Great info. Question: When you reduced the seawater down to a brine, did you test the salinity as well? or did you just measure by the reduction? Thanks.

[TheCooknChemist]

Have you tried making salt pyramids? Took me a long time to finetune but the results are awsome!

[kentuckyvapors]

despite you being british, i enjoyed this video.

[jjmunna]

Thank you for this video. Does it have the same mineral value as the French one?

[parth]

Could you use a rotovap for at least the first stage reduction? Seems like that would be much less energy intensive than boiling at atmospheric pressure!

[cholst]

Should work well with a solar dehydrator as well? If you wanna use less energy.