top of page

     THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SALT.

 

WHAT DOES SALT DO?

  • Salt is a natural antioxidant and not only adds taste but especially helps bring out the flavours and aromas present in the flour and other ingredients.

  • Next to its role in boosting the flavour of your bread, salt plays a role in tightening the gluten structure and adding strength to your dough. It helps the loaf to hold on to the carbon dioxide gas that is formed during fermentation, supporting good volume.

  • Salt slows down fermentation and enzyme activity in dough. The salt crystals draw water away form their environment (salt is ‘hygroscopic’). When salt and yeast compete for water, salt wins and the yeast is slowed down.

  • Because of its moisture maintaining properties, salt can prevent bread from getting stale but it can also (this is especially true in humid environments) absorb moisture from the air and leave you with soft crusts and soggy bread.

 

HOW MUCH SALT IS CONSIDERED NORMAL IN BREAD BAKING?

In bread baking the percentage of salt added that is considered normal, ranges from 1.8% to 2.2% of the total amount of flour, depending on the recipe and personal preference. Low salt contents can lead to bland loaves, anything over the 2.2% norm will likely be considered too salty. The UK recently came out with a new standard of 1 gram of salt per 100 grams of the final baked bread or about 1.5 to 1.6% of the total amount of flour. So instead of a percentage of salt to flour, they give the amount of salt per 100 gram of the actual finished product / bread.

​

SHOULD I BE AFRAID OF SALT TOUCHING MY YEAST?

Short answer: NO! Usually you add salt and yeast to your flour and immediately start mixing. It is totally unnecessary to put salt on one side and yeast on the other and seconds later start mixing them together anyway. You do not want to add salt on top of fresh yeast and leave it for minutes because then the salt will indeed kill the yeast.

​

WHAT TYPE OF SALT SHOULD I USE FOR BREAD BAKING?

All salt is good, as long as the salt crystals are fine enough and dissolve easily. A lot can be said for different types of salt, some contain additives, some have other minerals next to the sodium chloride (NaCl) considered beneficial for you (like Celtic sea salt which is also lower in sodium). You can make up your own mind as far as the health benefits go, taste wise it will not make a big difference to your loaf. Due to the relatively small quantity of salt it would be really hard to detect subtle differences in flavour.

​

Iodized Table Salt

Table salt is made by sending water down into inland salt mines and then evaporating that water until only salt crystals remain.  In the 1920’s iodine was added to table salt in an effort to prevent goiters (yikes…) which were caused by an iodide deficiency.  Most table salts sold in the United States are iodized.

​

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is an additive free salt.  It is racked during evaporation, which creates its characteristic flakes.  Kosher salt comes in a course grain and a fine grain.  The fine grain is great for baking, because it disperses quickly into ingredients.  A course grain salt could have trouble evenly distributing through a baking recipe, and you wouldn’t want that.

​

Sea Salt

Sea salt is created from evaporated sea water.  The process is a bit more costly than the inland mining process of table salt, and sea salt may contain trace amounts of minerals.  Because there are many seas around the world, there are many varieties of sea salt: Celtic sea salt, Hawaiian sea salt, Fleur de Sel, and Sicilian sea salt, to mention just a few.  Basically, if there’s a sea, there’s a good chance it has a salt.  I use a fine grain sea salt- La Baleine from France.  It’s nothing terribly fancy and can be found in most grocery stores in the states.

​

bottom of page