Hops Infused Salt

I have read about this, and want to try it, as I think it will make a great finishing salt for fish, grilled meats, spice up a salad dressing and definetly go into bread recipes that call for salt.

Ingredients
2 lbs maine Sea Salt
1 oz. Fuggle's whole leaf
1 oz. Williamette whole leaf
1 oz. Centennial whole leaf

In a large mixing bowl, I combined the hops and then mixed in the salt by hand. Moved to an airtight container to "meld"

The idea is, I hope the salt extracts the flavor by pulling out all the little bits of flavors, liquids, and oils in the hops. As far as seperating the hops from the salt, a strainer might work, given the salt can fall through, or I could dissolve it all in water, strain out the hops, and then boil the salt water to evaporate it down and scrape off the salt. I will keep people posted on how the salt turns out.

I wonder if it would be worth it if you were to line the bottom of an airtight container with the salt, on top of that layer a sheet of cheese cloth and on top of that, put your hops. Let it set for a few days and see what happens...

I thought this was a good idea. I went ahead and set some of this up using a ziplock container lined with kosher salt and some leftover open bags of willamette and saaz wrapped in cheesecloth. I can go back every few days and flip the cheesecloth bag.

My kid walked by when I wrapping the hops up, "Dad, that smells like poop!"

Its comming along nicely, the salt is picking up a very light brown, yellow, green color from the hops. I am going to leave it for about two more weeks, seperate out the salt, and then see what it does for altering flavors in things.

Just checking-in: how did this/is this turning out?

I am extracting the salt from the hops today, will post tonight how it comes out.

Bump

Ok, after 2 months, i decided it was the perfect time to sift out the hops from the salt. I left the little leaves and powder in the salt, as I didn't want to risk disolving the salt and releasing the oils. I then put all the salt, and the hop bits and pieces, into a food processor and pulverized for 2 minutes on high. I was left with this briny hops aroma, a green and brown hued pile of salt. It smells of hops, and the flavor is salt with a hint of bitterness. This would be great in breads, soups, or especially as a finishing salt. I am please, and want to try some sorachi ace, cascade, and amarillo hops next. I want the cirtrus aroma, and the high alpha acids to see how much of a difference it is. Will post back soon.

Took a tablespoon of hop salt, few cracks of fresh ground black pepper, 1 cup of whole grain flour, 1/2 tbsp. baking powder, and 1 1/4 cups of irish red ale and made a beer batter for some halibut fish and chips style. Then took a little mayo, reduced Gritty's 21 IPA, Chopped red onion, chopped capers, little bit of mustard, little hops salt, chopped gherkins, fresh parsley and made a killer tartar sauce. The hops were there, the beer was there, and it was fantastic. The other cooks in the kitchen scoffed it down hard.