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Out of interest, why do you prefer a salt grinder? I've never understood why these exist. Pepper grinders, absolutely - the aromatics are released on grinding.
by askvictor 3y ago
Out of interest, why do you prefer a salt grinder? I've never understood why these exist. Pepper grinders, absolutely - the aromatics are released on grinding. By not so with salt. Curious if I'm missing something.
- hosteur 3y agoFor pop corn you need fine grained salt. A grinder lets you control that. It is only about the grain sizes. Nothing about freshness with salt. With pepper it is about freshly releases aromatics.
- GrooveSAN 3y agoI’ve never found a salt grinder able to sustain the salt corrosion in the long run. Sooner or later, salt is aggregating and turning even the more resistant parts into rust. I was recently planning to get back to a regular pestle/mortar setup after yet another costly failure. Did you manage to find a way to work this around?
- sgtnoodle 3y agoWhat timescale are you talking about? I have a William Sonoma salt grinder, as well as one that my friend made for me. They're both about 5 years old. As far as I know there's no significant deterioration on either one. The grinding surfaces are ceramic.
- czechdeveloper 3y agoI use ceramic grinder. No corrosion possible.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago> I’ve never found a salt grinder able to sustain the salt corrosion in the long run There are ceramic grinders now. I'd expect those to not rust, but I don't know how long they stay sharp.
- erikpukinskis 3y agoYou can make ceramics harder than the hardest steel so staying sharp shouldn’t be a problem.
- carlmr 3y agoI've had ceramic salt grinders for years now. Anecdotally you're right, never thought about replacing them.
- phito 3y agoI've had a fully plastic one for about 5 years
- karakot 3y agoDelivering microplastics right into the food since 19xx.
- heeen2 3y agowe use a cheap ikea grinder, it has ceramic burrs and has undergone countless refills and dishwasher cycles.
- epcoa 3y agoIt’s easy enough in the US to just buy fine grained salt.
- sgtnoodle 3y agoA coffee grinder will quickly make a lot of really fine salt. I do that when I need to heat treat 3D printed parts to improve their material strength. You pack the part into fine salt, bake it at the original extrusion temperature, then slowly let it cool down. The plastic liquefies, and the packed salt holds its shape.
- redox99 3y agoThat'll probably really fuck up a coffee grinder, so make sure you don't use it for coffee.
- epcoa 3y agoI would assume they are talking about a blade "coffee" grinder, which is ironically terrible for coffee.
- galangalalgol 3y agoIf you want a really fine grind in a hurry you can use one and get ok results. You have to let it rest every 30s or so to cool down or it heats the grounds too much. I liked to shake it while grinding too. It isn't quite Turkish grind and there are a few large pieces that won't get full extraction, but if you want really fast extraction (or fast intentional over extraction) it works.
- sgtnoodle 3y agoYeah, a blade coffee grinder. For sure don't run salt through your expensive burr grinder!
- ClumsyPilot 3y agowhy would it fuck up a coffee grinder?
- jakogut 3y agoI also don't use salt grinders, preferring coarse salt like Kosher or coarse sea salt on most dishes. However, to play Devil's advocate, a grinder is adjustable between fine and coarse.
- vladvasiliu 3y agoIn my neck of the woods, unground salt is much, much cheaper than ground. Ground salt can basically be only found coming in a plastic dispenser. It could be argued that throwing all these plastic containers away isn't great for the environment. I only realize that I've never thought of comparing, but I've got the habit of using unground salt when cooking. My grandmother used to do this for some reason, so I picked it up. Unground salt is also useful for cleaning things, like cooking pans. It's therefore easier to only buy salt in one big pack that lasts forever.
- bboygravity 3y agoPortuguese kitching uses a lot of coarse salt. A 1 kilo bag is like 0,23 EUR
- carlmr 3y agoAlso can't make good brownies without big salt crystals. Or pretzels.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoIn london at Canary Wharf there is a 'German' pub that serves pretzels without salt on them! I tried explaining that they are all crinimals but they were just really confused!
- kuschku 3y ago500g of fine table salt is 9¢, so the price doesn't really matter tbh.
- JohnFen 3y ago> In my neck of the woods, unground salt is much, much cheaper than ground. In my neck of the woods, unground salt is the most expensive kind, because the only place you can find it is in upscale gourmet stores.
- renw0rp 3y agoI've asked my mother the exact same question a couple of weeks ago. She said, that as salt is hygroscopic "table salt" comes with anti-cacking agents. Salt which comes as larger crystals doesn't need them.
- gruez 3y agoWhat's wrong with the anti-caking agents?
- henrydark 3y agoI wouldn't trust anyone that is against cake
- malablaster 3y agoEspecially not an agent.
- itzworm 3y agoWell it's not salt for one.
- Scoundreller 3y agoI mean, calcium silicate _is_ a salt. As is sodium ferrocyanate. You want your anti-caking agent to absorb a lot of moisture and a salt is the way to do it.
- autoexec 3y agoI guess it'd depend on what the agent was, but either way, it means some amount of the salt you're pouring over your food isn't salt. Eliminate the non-salt from your salt and you never have to worry about what might be wrong with it or how much non-salt you're paying for. That's the reason I've switched to shredding my own parmesan cheese instead of just shaking it out of a can since the cans in some cases contain ~10% cellulose.
- soperj 3y agopre-ground salt often contains sugar (as an ingredient, it's on the package).
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoWhat? They sell salt with added sugar in the US!?!?
- lost_tourist 3y agoIt must be a special kind because Morton's the most popular brand of table in the USA has salt and calcium silicate, no sugar at all, 0.
- soperj 3y agoHere's Morton's with dextrose. https://nourishingattempts.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/why-is-there-sugar-in-my-salt/ https://nourishingattempts.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/why-is-t...
- wholinator2 3y agoYeah, no. I have no idea what that person is referencing. I've had all the available salts around me and I've literally never seen sugar in salt. That would be insane. They do use an anti caking agent sometimes though, but that's more like sand
- soperj 3y ago[flagged]
- soperj 3y ago[flagged]
- JohnFen 3y agoI bet there's salt somewhere that has added sugar, but I have never personally seen it in my life.
- InvaderFizz 3y agoI prefer course grained and no anti caking agents or iodine added. It's nothing special, some no-name Himalayan pink salt in a plastic grinder.
- AstralStorm 3y agoWell, iodine is required for life so you better get some elsewhere, like from a supplement. It's not present in sufficient amounts in water or plants these days...
- jibe 3y agoLack of iodine in the diet was an issue 100 years ago, but not so much now. According to the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements, tests have shown that the population in the United States is “iodine sufficient.” Most Americans who eat a varied diet get enough iodine even if they don’t use iodized salt. They are at little risk of iodine deficiency* https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/well/eat/should-we-be-buying-iodized-salt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/well/eat/should-we-be-buy...
- Scoundreller 3y agoIt’s worth it for anyone to read the article. Plenty of circumstances that could lead to deficiency. I think the “varied diet” usually means Americans get enough through non-home use iodized salt (like processed/restaurant foods). As the article says, seafood (plant or not) and dairy are good iodine sources, if you consume them.
- AstralStorm 3y agoSeafood yes, dairy only because the cow's feed is supplemented. Free range grass fed cows will have low iodine content in milk.
- thrashh 3y agoThat article is not trustworthy. It links Americans being iodine sufficient to getting varied diet but that’s not a conclusion made by the source from what I can see. The article also says bread is a good source of iodine when the source says it’s a very poor source of iodine. So I think the article is making stuff up, linking a source but hoping no one will actually read it, and probably written by someone trying to get iodine supplements removed. Normally I’d expect to see this kind of writing from some blog but not the NYT.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoJust that they use chemicals to keep the salt seperate.
- jcims 3y agoThis comment reminded me that for the past few years I’ve been using a hand crank coffee grinder for my pepper and i don’t think I’ll ever go back. It’s perfect.
- airza 3y agoGrinding the salt more finely makes it stick to the popcorn a bit better.
- op00to 3y agoMy conjecture: salt grinders create more irregular shapes than provided by commercially made table salt. Irregular shapes mean more surface area, which means faster absorption into the body, which means tastier food. Totally without evidence.
- zo1 3y agoI'm a big fan of tomatoes, and one of my favorite dishes is sliced tomatoes, salted, and eaten with cheese. For some reason, normal salt just sticks on the top of the tomato despite it being wet and I can "taste" the salt not just saltiness. However, with crunched salt crystals, they basically dissolve and disappear into the moisture of the tomato. This just tastes better too. Don't ask me why or how it all happens, it's just what I've found using my taste buds.
- interestica 3y agoGrinder means finer salt. Finer salt sticks to things better (you can get a baby powder consistency). And the way the salt "tastes" is different because the powder dissolves on your tongue differently/quicker. Salt "dust" is a really interesting way of adding salt to food -- and you actually end up adding less than larger grains
- professoretc 3y agoI use salt flour for popcorn; it's essentially salt that is milled as fine as flour. There was a study (which I can't find now) which found that our perception of saltiness is based less on amount and more on surface area coverage.
- halfnormalform 3y agoIt's sometimes just called "popcorn salt" and it's exactly as you describe. (And it can also be made at home from regular table salt with a food processor or mortar & pestle.)
- oktwtf 3y agoI take a trip to the bulk-barn often enough to get “Butter Salt” it’s powdered and yellow. I suspect it’s what goes into the packages for the movie theatre.
- coldtea 3y ago>Grinder means finer salt. I've never seen on-the-spot ground salt smaller than the stuff you can buy already grounded. Except if you buy flakes, but then why do so if you want finer salt?
- Lendal 3y agoThe shapes of the crystals affects the taste. If the salt is going to be dissolved, such as in pasta water, then grain-shape doesn't matter. Use the cheapest salt. But if the salt is going onto the surface of a food, such as in popcorn or a steak, then fresh-ground salt gives a more salty flavor per gram used. The salt grains that come already ground have a smooth texture like the smooth pebbles in a creek. Fresh-grinding gives the crystals a jagged, irregular shape. This enhances the effect when they hit your taste buds.
- moogly 3y agoJust buy Flavacol
- Scoundreller 3y agoYeah, I bought a pound (or a kilo?) and it will last me the rest of my life.
- PhilipRoman 3y agoNot an expert on this, but after buying both types of salt from the same manufacturer and comparing them, the pre-ground one has a different texture and is less pleasant to eat; almost like it was mixed with dust.