How to Make Crystallized Salt

Did you know that the production of salt was legally restricted in ancient times, so it was historically used as a method of trade, for barter, and also as currency? Today, about a quarter billion tons of salt is produced every year globally. What do we even do with so much salt? Here’s a fun idea - make crystals! That’s right. You can actually make beautiful, pristine crystals from salt yourself.

Salt is an extremely water soluble solute. In fact, most of our salt comes from the sea and some is mined to meet our demand of bulk rock salt. But the question is: How we can make a crystal out of the flaky salt?

Crystallization takes place when the concentration of the solute exceeds solubility in a particular solvent. Therefore, the residual un-dissolved solute particles latch onto each other to form a crystal consisting of sodium chloride’s signature crystal lattice structure. This is how rock salts are naturally formed too.

Here’s how you can make your own salt crystals at home.

1.       Heat water: Pour around 120mL of water and wait for it to boil.

2.       Pick your salt: You can add plain old table salt or choose any other salt. Do not use iodized salt because they don’t work well. We recommend alum because it crystallizes relatively fast and you can find it easily too. You can find other types of salts such magnesium chloride, calcium chloride and many others at Rock Salt USA.

3.       Stir until you reach saturation: Take the pan off heat and add in about 60-120 mL of salt and keep stirring until water becomes clear again. Clarity in water means all the salt has been dissolved. At this point, keep adding more salt and stir until the solution reaches saturation and no more salt can be dissolved. At this point, you’ve made a supersaturated solution which basically means the solution contains more salt than water can hold. Supersaturated solutions start forming crystals easily.

4.       Dispense the solution: Dispense the supersaturated solution in a clean container, preferably a transparent jar. You can filter the solution with a filter paper as you pour it, so as to get rid of any impurities to ensure your crystals are finer.

5.       Add food coloring: This step is optional and comes down to personal taste really. You can add in the food coloring that you want your crystals to be in the solution, or you can skip this step all together if you want to have translucent crystals.

6.       Prepare a suspension system for crystal formation: All you have to do now is provide the salt molecules in the supersaturated solution, something to latch on to. Grab a pencil long enough to lie across the top of your jar and tie a string around it. Cut the hanging string at a length that can be submerged in the solution without touching the bottom of the jar. Place the pencil on top of the jar so the hanging string extends into the solution and then put the whole thing at an undisturbed place.

7.       Wait: Alum crystals start growing within a few hours, so does Epsom salt. So, keep checking periodically. Some salts may take a day or two. The longer you wait, the bigger your crystals will grow. When you feel you’ve achieved the crystal size you wanted, you can take them out!

If you’re looking for different kinds of top quality rock salts such as ice melt, bag salt and bulk rock salt, Rock Salt USA is the best in the business.