I Smoked Salt

No this post doesn't belong in the Brown Leaf Forum. I just finished smoking sea salt and peppercorns. I ran across a recipe for smoking your own salts and peppers for a lot less than if you had bought them.

Since I had a Cameron's smoking pan and more than enough wood chips I thought I would give it a go.

I soaked Hickory wood chips ( about 1/2 cup) in cold water for 1/2 hour. I have a bag of European Style Peppercorns from a local spice shop. This blend is about 3 parts Tellicherry black to 1 part Muntoc white.

I made 2 aluminum foil boats, 1 for the pepper, 1 for the salt.

The Chips were loaded in the pan, the foil boats were added with the Peppers and Sea Salt. The smoker was then closed, (almost). I left it open about an inch and put it on the stove at medium heat. At the first sign of smoke I sealed the smoker and turned the heat down to medium low.

The timer was set for 30 minutes. During the process only a slight hint of smoke was coming out of the pan, so I think my heat control was spot on.

After 30 minutes, Heat off, smoker top opened (the house smells great) and the salt a peppers were set to cool for 1 hour.

After cooling I sampled some of the salt and lo and behold it not only picked up the Hickory, but there was also a slight Pepper flavor as well. I have 2 older mills that I'll load with my new creation.

Looking for any other experiences or recipes for smoking your own salt and Pepper.

wow, I never would have thought salt would pick up flavors. I'll have to try it sometime.

Smoked salt is great! Use it as a finishing salt on steak, It's also really nice on tomatoes and eggs over easy. I've never heard of smoking peppercorns. I'll be curious to hear how they turn out.

Great stuff! Smoked kosher salt adds a great accent to anything.

Tom

I also have a cameron's smoker, what effect does soaking the chips have? I've never seen that suggested in relation to those smokers before! I've been meaning to give smoked salt a go for a while now, may have to give it a shot tomorrow!

I love smoked salt! Sprinkle it on some nice, ripe tomatoes out of the garden. And on steak. A friend of ours uses it on the rim of the glass for bloody marys.

I got to try this.

-jim

Maybe the next slab of ribs that end up on the grate I'll throw a pan of salt on top. See what happens! Heck I guess at worst if it doesn't turn out I'm just out some sea or kosher salt.. Curious about the pepper. Sounds interesting, could see that going very right or very wrong...

YetiDave said:

I also have a cameron's smoker, what effect does soaking the chips have? I've never seen that suggested in relation to those smokers before! I've been meaning to give smoked salt a go for a while now, may have to give it a shot tomorrow!

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I used chips from 'Charol Companion' they are a little bit bigger than the 'dust' you get with the cameron but smaller than 'chunks' you would use in an outdoor cooker. Hope this makes sense. I did soak them for about 1/2 hour before smoking. I used approx 1/2 cup which at the end of 30 min. of smoking about 1/2 were unused.

I bought some cherry tomatos to compare the original peppercorn's to my smoked version, and there is a distinct difference. The smoked peppercorncorns had a distinct (albeit slight) smokey flavor to the non-smoked. The salt is the bomb (As others have stated). When I do it again, I'm planning on 30 min. Salt and 45 min for the peppercorn. I think the added time for the peppercorns will allow more oils to absorb the smoke.

Would you recommend buying some bigger chips then? I find that the dust tends to give a big burst of smoke that is gone fairly quickly, maybe I'm getting the temp wrong

YetiDave said:

Would you recommend buying some bigger chips then? I find that the dust tends to give a big burst of smoke that is gone fairly quickly, maybe I'm getting the temp wrong

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I would recommend it. You hit the nail on the head with the dust, I've had the same experience, my experience is that temp will only make a small difference. That dust stuff just isn't dense enough to sustain the smoke for any length of time

This is a great idea! I'm definitely feeling inspired now and am looking forward to giving this a go. Thanks for sharing this.