What is so special with their salt compared to the other salts you have bought that didn’t work in that grinder? Their salt is drier? Or is it the size?
This point on shape is interesting.
I use Diamond Crystal salt…period. I have a good supply of grey salt and fleur de sel I’ve brought home from France which I put out at dinner parties, but day in and day out, for all cooking and seasoning I stick to DC. I find it has a clean, bright taste.
BUT you have to adjust recipes that call for “salt” which assume table salt, like Morton’s or Leslie’s. As Scuba wrote above, you have to weigh the amount of table salt a recipe calls for and use this WEIGHT of kosher salt since it measures much less than table salt. i.e., if you use spoon for spoon, kosher for table, you will be using much less salt than the recipe requires.
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FWIW, it also does depend on the brand (due to size of the crystals). I make salt-brined pickles and got into an interesting discussion (on Chowhound actually) about the apparent significant difference in ‘saltiness’ depending on whether one uses Diamond Crystal or Morton’s Kosher salt. The bottom line seemed to be that you have to use a weight not a volume measure because equal volumes of Morton’s will result in 30% more ‘saltiness’ than using Diamond Crystal due to grain size. Morton’s is coarse, DC is fine.
Problem is that not all recipes give a weight measure. Most seem to use volume measures (with no note as to coarse or fine) so the brand can make a big difference.
Agree with this comment concerning weight and also the above posts about the differences between table and Kosher salts as well; will never forget my first attempt at making gravlax, using Morton’s table salt instead of Kosher, thinking it wouldn’t make much difference. Completely inedible despite multiple rinses. What a waste of fresh king (Chinook) salmon. This was in my early 20’s. I’ve learned just a few things since then…
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have no idea. Just did not work. I tried various salts recommended by Whole Foods , then named Fresh Foods I believe. The salt just does not come out as though it was all gummed up in the grinder, even with the second grinder that was given to me. e made sure that we were not using the pepper grinder which is yellow. Anyway, that is not expensive to buy and it last me a long time. For normal salting prior to brining or smoking, I use regular kosher salt. Perhaps it is Morton’s, I cannot remember bec I empty the box of salt into a canister. For most cooking, I use Himalaya pink salt. I used to also have a gray flaky sea salt that I can crush with my fingers for chowder but alas, retired with Whole Foods over an hour away, I stopped carrying that . Life goes on, the past though glorious is out of my reach now.
Diamond is my brand as well. Never vary. That way I have a good sense of salting without measuring. Not talking about baking
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The salt conversion chart has good info–thanks! But I wish Morton had the Mojo to list one of the most prominent comparative issues: how Morton and their main competitor Diamond Crystal Kosher compare. Especially for baking, I go with salt by weight rather than volume.
I do recall from Cooks Illustrated something like this: table salt at 1/2 cup matches 3/4 cup of Morton’s Kosher, which equals 1 cup of Diamond Crystal. Those are useful proportions for brining. Myself, I hardly ever use table salt.
It’s very annoying to me that recipes so seldom specify which brand of kosher salt they call for. But, basically, it helps to know that Morton is to be used more sparingly than Diamond Crystal. For some reason, Diamond Crystal is unfindable here in Northern Indiana, but there’s lots written here about it. For brining and bread making, I suggest using recipes that point to weight.
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I’m using weight more and more for everything, not just baking. With just a little care in addition to greater precision I’m doing less washing up. That’s always a good thing as here at Chez Auspicious when my wife cooks I clean, and when I cook I clean. I have yet to figure out how that happened.
The scale is something that migrated from my boat to her/our house. I’ve had to buy a new one for the boat.
Were precision is not critical the eyeball and palm work fine. This does take some personal calibration. Once in a while my wife calls me on a “measurement” and we dig out the spoons and cups. I get darn close. grin
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This is exactly the point I was trying to make above. Thanks for more detail.
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About your gray flaky sea salt, that’s certainly some form a so-called Fleur de sel (French for "flower of salt,’ although the product also come from Portugal and Spain and perhaps other places). It’s widely available online, but speciality spice and grocery places–even like an Italian grocer–might have it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it a a Super Target store (they’re quite good with foods–not sure what nation you live in).
There’s a YouTube video on Fleur de sel compared to other salts.
A further salt I had for some time, cheaper than Fleur de sel, was super-coarse and distinctly gray in color, and it was French sea salt, I think. Too coarse to be a so-called “finishing salt.”
I had tried gray flaky salt from then Fresh Foods ( now known as Whole Foods) but did not work on my Peugeot Salt Grinder. I am happy with the ones they suggested, it works well. I think I pay $20.00 delivered from Swiss Army Knife, it has Peugeot written on it. It last me a long time as I only use it ini the table, not for cooking.
Thanks
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