Local Venice Salt

I live about 1/2 mile from the Pacific Ocean. Donny and I enjoy biking beside it, boogie boarding in it and now we make salt from it. Thats right, I had a successful go at making my own salt. And it is so easy. Here is how to make your own salt.

First you have to get over the fact that you are collecting water from the ocean, since Donny was quite shy about that. He really didn't want anyone to see us doing it. It was Labor Day so the beach was pretty crowded in Venice. Oh well! We took 2 empty plastic bottles that could hold about 3 liters of water total. We quickly filled them with water and biked back home.

Then we filtered the water through some cheesecloth and emptied into a stainless pot. Donny folded the cheese cloth a few times to make it harder for the sand to get through. We actually put a rubber band around the cheesecloth to attach it directly to the top of the bottle. We then boiled the water uncovered for over 2 hours.

Once there was little water in the pot I lowered the temperature so it was hot enough for the water to evaporate, but not so hot the water would pop out. All of a sudden you could see the bottom of the water crystalized into the salt. I stirred it around a bit to dry it all out. I just spooned it out and will put it in a little glass jar. Local sea salt. For free. Brilliant.