See how Jacobsen's sea salt is made

You might be wondering why Ben Jacobsen chose to make his salt from the water of Netarts Bay in Oregon. When he was launching the company, he pulled samples from bays and beaches up and down the coast and the waters here made the best, most clean-tasting salt. Because sea salt is made by evaporating water pulled straight from the ocean, the source matters. Netarts Bay’s level of salinity is high and the water is very clean because the bay is full of oyster farms and there are very few fresh water inputs.

So what’s the difference between sea salt and table salt? Simply put, sea salt is harvested from the sea, extracting salt by evaporating ocean water, while table salt is mined from ancient salt deposits in the earth. 

Table salt is refined and often has iodine added along with anti-caking agents. Sea salt, by comparison, contains trace minerals and the texture can vary widely from the soft flake of fleur de sel to Jacobsen Salt’s crunchy finishing salt and its smaller-grained kosher salt.

At Jacobsen’s facility, it’s a two-and-a-half week process taking the water from the bay to a bag of salt. Water is pulled from the bay using a 2-inch PVC pipe and that water is pumped into large vats where it’s boiled and the process of evaporation begins. Fresh water trickles in at the same rate water is evaporating, so the water level stays the same in those huge vats all the time.

The water is filtered so there are no microplastics or other contaminants and eventually, it makes its way to a room full of evaporation pans where it’s heated very gently until those pyramid-like crystals form and become heavier than the water and drop away onto the bottom of the evaporation pan. The staff uses huge snow shovels to gently release the salt from the pans, putting it into barrels. The salt is then rinsed (yes, rinsed!) and then graded … it’s then either bagged or infused with a range of flavors like Pinot Noir or black garlic.