Unrefined Sea Salt
Premium natural North Atlantic sea salt is sun-dried with no addition of whitening or anti-caking chemicals. This traditional dried sea salt contains trace essential minerals and is necessary in bread to control the leavening process and aid in digestion.
We add 0.66% salt (not sodium) by weight to the Gluten Free loaves and 1% by weight to each of the Spelt, Wheat & Kamut varieties. This is significantly less than is seen in the baking industry in general — the industry average is about around 1.35% of bread weight.
The use of salt is essential to proper fermentation of good bread. However we are able to use less partly due to the more complex flavours offered by naturally fermented breads. Unrefined sea salt is surprisingly uncommon in use by natural/organic food processors - I wish we were not so unique in using it as the additional cost per loaf is minimal, yet the benefits are significant. It is arguably the best way, to obtain an excellent source of trace minerals. In general our bodies are short of trace minerals, even if we are eating a diverse and abundant supply of fruit & vegetables as our soils have become greatly depleted in trace minerals.