Brine Believers

Wild Atlantic Ocean + Filter + Sun= MV Sea Salt

No easy yet carbon intensive, taste changing boiling or baking techniques for Heidi & Curt. Nope, they depend on Mother Nature to 100% sun-dry MV Sea Salt. Of course, humidity is a thing on an island plus the salt is from the ocean so MV Sea Salt is moist and briny the way sea salt should be… It takes like Martha’s Vineyard. Really. It does.

Throughout the year, Heidi and Curtis (and any good-natured friends they can rope in) go to the island’s south shore when the wind, tide and wave action are acceptable to collect at least 1,000 gallons of wild Atlantic Ocean seawater. If they spy a seal then they high tail it for home before collecting for where there are seals….[insert Jaws music here {insert gasp emoji here please}]

Back at Down Island Farm, they filter and reverse pump the water into a building similar to a greenhouse. The filter removes sand, seaweed, or aquatic life (which they collect and feed to the chickens and peacocks) from the water.

The evaporator is totally heated by the power of the sun; it can reach over 110 degrees inside! The heat, and solar fans which break surface tension slowly evaporate water – a process which can take upwards of 10 weeks depending on the weather (hot and dry is optimal). As the seawater evaporates, the salt is left behind, slowly turning from clear to opaque to blotchy then solid, and forming piles of crumbly crystals. When a crust forms on top, it’s ready to harvest as finishing salt

Heidi and Curt gently collect the delicate sea salt crystals into pyramids and allow a few more days of evaporation. Entering the evaporator again, Heidi and Curt collect the crystals in totes to bring inside for packaging.

1,000 gallons of seawater makes about 250 pounds of salt. Two grades of salt– a drier “traditional” or “finishing” salt and a more mineral-dense, moist salt are harvested. Once scooped up from the evaporator then packaging begins. Visit Buy Sea Salt