Salt Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Salt | Price Points | Epicurious

I'm Ben Jacobson and I'm a salt expert [Music] this looks like a fleur de sel to me super classic the literal translation of fleur de sel is salt flour and so salt flour really means it's a solar produced salt the lordís L is is typically the first salt crystal that forms on the surface of the brine that is collected in salt pans through those open-air pans you get biomaterial you get biomass that could end up with like you know small chunks of wood dirt dust even bird poop the good thing about salt is that it's a natural anti anti bacterial generally though obviously the majority of that of any sort of you know large bio material is sifted out before it reaches you and you and me to me this looks like a really nice fleur de sel there's still quite a bit of moisture in here and that moisture is you know the salt is produced in widely varying areas from Italy to Spain to France to Guatemala and so salts you know being a condensation of seawater will taste like its environment irregularities in the salt you know are natural it's an irregular product it's naturally produced into open air salt pans with Sun and wind and birds and and and everything else that we love and in nature salt a in particular looks very clean and well processed to me this looks like a classic french fleur de sel because of how its sifted there's not a lot of bio material in here there's a little bit of course with that is the case with any fleur de sel there's the amount of irregularity of in the salt crystals is pretty small and so you have these salt crystals that are nice and compact and then salt B to me looks you know it looks very similar of course to me this looks like a guatemalan fleur de sel it looks a little bit less refined than than salt a there's not quite as much moisture in the salt this one has a little bit more biomaterial because you know this salt is made into open-air salt pans around the world and and it's something that you can't control and that's a good thing you want a little bit of funk to and that's where the classic fleur de sel is no try salt a first definitely got a nice little crunch to it it's super round it dissipates quickly in your mouth it tastes very natural it's a really nice salt to me I think this is a French Florida's oh I would use this on steak on hearty vegetables like roasted carrots cauliflower roasted cauliflower I like kalahari when it gets really dark and charred and this is a salt that would stand up to that undoubtedly okay let's say Selby to me this looks quite different a little bit less moisture than salt a let's try it it's quite different this is a lot crunchy ER these are salt crystals that are that have been formed a little bit faster than salt a and the reason I know that is because it's a crunchy or more compact crystal that happens when you speed up the salt making process this was likely harvested during a very hot time versus this was likely harvested then during a slightly cooler time when the salt crystal was forming more slowly I think a is going to be a little bit more expensive than B but I'm anxious to find out haha that's cool these are both great flute ourselves if you're looking for a fluid a cell that's going to be a little bit more refined that's going to use to finish on your food I'd look for you know this French or or a or other types of kind of similarly produced Pluto cells and then this Guatemalan floater cell is really really nice as well fleur de sel in general is it's it's a really beautifully produced salt that's very very natural it's it reflects the environment it's a really nice tool to have in your cupboard Wow two smoked salts undeniably smoky salt a definitely really really smoky honestly it kind of smells like it's a like it's liquid smoke in here liquid smoke is simply made by smoking water and and collecting it as vapor and then turning it back into water so it's not necessarily a bad thing but it just is it kind of smells and tastes when you add it to food it smells and tastes like an artificial smoke the salt itself is definitely a kind of a coarse rock salt almost and a little bit afraid to bite it into it really it's it's pretty aggressive let's try salt be here the salt is is you know nice and light and flaky it's definitely a really light smoke to it and most Delphian natural smoke so I think we should try some smoked salt smoked salt is a great way to add a nice little bit of smokiness to your food without actually smoking something we'll try salt a yeah it's a rock salt and it's really really smoky the salt it's it's intense it's really really crunchy it's too much get some water Wow I think this is a pretty pretty industrially produced smoked salt very likely very likely using a liquid smoke as kind of a supplement to to the flavoring let's try salt be here again really nice soft smoke to it it's a it smells natural it's nice it's got a nice smoky flavor that's nice and light and kind of pleasing but it's not like you're sucking a tailpipe or something that's it's really subtle and it's it's well done in my opinion Selby is more expensive than salt a salt a is is much more kind of condensed in rock salt form and the salt also smells like artificial smoke truly Wow crazy so - OH - an ounce versus a dollar thirty six an ounce that's totally surprising but that's good means that you can get a really good quality smoked salt for cheaper than you can a bad quality Stokes all in terms of kind of what the factors are at play we're dealing with here with with salt B there's probably produced it so you nificant and enough scale the cost can be lower and you also look at the packaging you might see a really fancy jar in the shelf versus a very simple cardboard box in the shelf and in many cases you're you might be paying more for the packaging of the product than you are for the products itself looks like we have two table salts in front of us the reason I can tell is that this salt is pretty granulated salt a is definitely a very fine table salt that's free-flowing for sure if I shake it around in this ramekin you can see the salt moving around it's very uniform the uniformity tells me that the salt is industrially produced probably through vacuum evaporation the free-flowing leads me to believe that it probably has a calcium silicate or some other free-flowing agent added to it so B looks like a very fine salt as well like a very fine grained salt definitely looks a little bit more natural than salt a does the crystals are a little bit less uniform which again lead me to believe that it's probably not an industrially produced salt and although the salt spills when I shake it here I don't think this salt has a free-flowing agent or an anti-caking agent I think this is probably a natural sea salt or natural table salt so let's taste salt a here it's pretty bitter I'm getting kind of some seizing up on my tongue it dries out the spot in your tongue where you place the salt and to me that kind of comes across as bitter almost like you'd have with a glass of really tannic wine it kind of dries out your mouth in that spot and it's not to cleave Pleasant yeah it's it's it's a decent we produce salt that being said I think there are probably better salts out there that can do the same job and probably taste a lot better so salt be a message to try as well salt B is a very light and pillowy texture wise it's a really beautiful salt it's there's definitely no free-flow cake anti-caking agents so that's good it's salty no surprise but you know what I'm not getting that kind of bitter tannic pull on my tongue that I did with salt a taste like the ocean it tastes like when you accidentally like swallow a gulp of seawater as a kid and then spit it out and then you're kind of left with that briny tasting taste in your mouth that kind of tastes good yeah it's it's most definitely a naturally produced salts decent quality table salt and I would definitely use this to season you know a large large volume of food my guess is that salt B is definitely more expensive than salt eight okay three cents an ounce versus 19 cents an ounce so salt B most definitely more expensive 19 cents an ounce versus 3 cents an ounce really think about it how much salts you actually use and buy on a yearly basis so if you got to spend seven dollars here eight dollars a year on a better quality table salt I would encourage you to do that Wow here we go looks like two flakes salts flakes health is commonly also known as pyramid salt and and the reason for that is because that's the natural formation of a flake of salt that's formed very very slowly so the reason I know it's flake salt is well obviously they're both very light and flaky this particular flake salt though is is quite coarse the structural integrity of these of these flakes are pretty intense it's a very kind of thick flake salt what I want to look for when I'm choosing a flake salt is something that's that's very thin and almost translucent we can almost see through the flakes because you want the structural integrity of the flake but you don't want to bite down on rock salt because it's just not very pleasing and the nice thing about flakes all does it does provide a nice textural contrast so salt B is clearly very very flaky it's beautiful my only complaint as a salt nerd is the this salt is pretty laden with calcium and so what that means is that you can actually see the calcium on that on these flakes of salt what this catted calcium is going to do to the salt it's going to give this the solve a bit more minerality and ultimately a little bit more bitterness than you would if you had a very translucent flake of salt having said that this salt is very light and flaky and very very beautiful it does have a lot of structural integrity maybe almost too much with this with the added calcium to it but it's a very nice finishing salt it's definitely going to get you what you need in terms of adding a nice burst of solidity and in terms of adding a nice textural contrast to your dish so salt a it's certainly a flake salt but it's definitely a pretty coarse flake salt it kind of sticks to your teeth a little bit that being said it definitely has a nice nice briny nough sand kind of dissipates quickly which is nice but I'm actually just try salt B for sure these flakes are nice and large full of minerals this salts actually six to your teeth quite a lot as well which is not my personal preference a little bit bitter these flakes are they're beautiful it's almost as if they're machine formed I know they're not they're what you think of finishing salt should be in terms of in terms of its appearance I think B is probably more expensive than a just because of the structural integrity of the flakes all right so be is definitely a little bit more expensive than a not a huge surprise a is definitely a more mass-produced flake salt than B is it has a little bit more minerality than I'd prefer but salt B is a solid flake finishing salt Wow this is definitely garlic salt if you could be here it smells like garlic bread baking the oven you know with foil wrapped around that garlic salt isn't infused salt and that really just means it's a flavored salt it has flavor added to it so it could be a garlic salt it could be a celery salt and onion salt it's something that enables you to add a ton of flavor very very easily garlic smells a little bit stale to be honest this salt is definitely a granulated salt it's it's free-flowing oftentimes free-flowing agents are added to a granulated salt because when you add a flavoring or like it or an or an infusion like a garlic powder you're adding typically you're adding moisture and you're adding ability to condense sometimes even a rice flour is added to flavored salts and that's to prevent caking that's like a natural free-flowing agent so taking a look at B here smells really garlicky for sure the garlic smells kind of nutty in a way it's it's nice it smells pretty fresh and rich and the the salts that is being used is is definitely more flaky and definitely more kind of a little bit more coarse and but there's no free-flowing agents it's you can see I shake it around and it doesn't really shake very easily smells really nice and garlicky and I'm excited to try both of these so let's taste salt a I'm excited for this this is pure nostalgia it's garlic heat for sure it's really nice I mean it's it's your classic garlic salt it reminds me of being at home as a kid in a very strange odd way but yeah it's it tastes good it smells good this office is a little bit bitter for sure but you know all in all it's kind of like your classic all-american garlic salt so let's try saw B that's nice the salt definitely has a very light kind of flaky texture and and a really nice rich subtle garlic flavor very very different from kind of the nostalgic garlic salt that we all grew up with but this one's very nice I like it a lot based on on a couple of factors number one the fact that salt a is a granulated salt and it looks like it has free flowing agents looks like a commercially produced typical assault I'm guessing it's going to be salt B that's going to be more expensive than solve a I was right so salt B is definitely a little bit more expensive 262 an ounce versus 28 cents an ounce I think each salt has its purpose garlic bread for the family for you know a big cookout standard garlic salt is probably just fine when it's raining and cold outside and you just want to come home and make a quick dinner I would probably go with salt beet it's gonna give you a lot more flavor a lot more texture a lot more deliciousness in your meal having said that I think both salts serve a different purpose and each stand on their own great salt should be used not only every single day but at every single meal there's no reason that you should go through life using just low quality salt you have to have it to physically survive so why not have the best [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,307,514

Rating: 4.8374672 out of 5

Keywords: cheap, cheap vs expensive, expensive, price points, salt, cheap salt, expensive salt, salt expert, salts, cheap salts, expensive salts, cheap vs expensive food, salt test, salt tasting, salt taste, salt making process, salt taste test, how to make salt, taste test, salt reviews, salt comparison, salt review, salt testing, salt price, epicurious, cooking, recipes, best salt, fancy salt, types of salt, table salt, luxury salt

Id: 3HjddSn3vK0

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Corvvo]

WHY ARE YOU GANKING A FIZZ MID?

[u/methmeth2000]

Well played sir have my up vote

[u/UnHaLo]

I have only played this season explain