Salt, Free Flowing - Read The Ingredients Label

[Montie Derby]

I Googled  Sodium Silicoaluminate diamond and this data sheet came up:

http://www.cargill.com/salt/static/DM029116_LatestReleased_DM029116_Web.pdf

If I'm reading it right, I think Diamond Crystal is OK.

[H-K-J]

OH CRAP!! :o I've been using Morton kosher also! SHOOT now I've gottuh throw out my 2 month old Stilton I am not happy!! :'(

[dthelmers]

I used to use Morton Kosher salt, but I switched over for two reasons: even if the anti-caking agent is OK to eat, I'd just rather have my salt contain salt, and when I make pickles the anti-caking agent seems to make for a cloudy brine, where the straight sodium chloride doesn't. I didn't notice any difference in the many cheeses I made between Morton and Diamond Crystal, but I did notice it last summer pickling, so I switched.
It may be my imagination, but DC seems to dissolve more quickly when I make brine.

[Sailor Con Queso]

NO, you don't have to throw out your Stilton.

[Cloversmilker]

My Morton canning and pickling salt has 'SALT' listed as its sole ingredient. 

[margaretsmall]

I've been intrigued to see that my local supermarket (Coles, for Australian listers) has two housebrands of cooking salt, one of which lists the anti-caking agent and the other doesn't. The 'pure' one was cheaper, if my memory serves me correctly.
Margaret

[tinysar]

I can buy "sea salt" quite cheaply - it's just the "table" and "cooking" salts that have additives in them (I don't really believe that they'd ruin my cheese, I just object on principle to paying for unwanted additions to my food) - does anyone know of any reason that sea salt might be bad for cheese? Naturally-high iodine levels or anything like that?

[Sailor Con Queso]

Sea salt can definitely have lots of iodine. IMHO it's not the best choice for making cheese.

[Boofer]

Until recently, I was blindly trusting Morton Kosher Salt to be just salt. The kind folks on the forum advised me that it might be more than salt. I looked and found that it had something called "Yellow Prussiate of Soda", or Sodium ferrocyanide.

Here are its uses:
"Sodium ferrocyanide is a chemical additive known as E 535. It is added to road and food grade salt as an anticaking agent.[2] When combined with iron, it converts to a deep blue pigment called Prussian blue.[3] In photography, it is used for bleaching, toning, and fixing. It is used as a stabilizer for the coating on welding rods. In the petroleum industry, it is used for removal of mercaptans."

Now I use pickling salt which lists just salt on the label. So what good is the word "Kosher"? It certainly doesn't translate to "purity".

-Boofer-

[H-K-J]

NO, you don't have to throw out your Stilton.

WHEW!! }}}sighing with relief{{{   ;) Thanks Sailor

[CdnMorganGal]

The name/term kosher salt does not mean the salt is kosher (pure) but rather that the salt crystals are sufficiently large to bleed out meat (which is called koshering the meat).  If the salt actually is kosher it will have a circled K or U on the package.

In southern Ontario, dont know about other parts of the country or the US, I have found Aurora brand Mediterranean Sea Salt, available in both fine and coarse crystals in Italian grocery stores and smaller grocery chain stores.   It has no additives, has the circled U on the box and it is cheaper than some or most pickling/kosher/additive free salts (about $2.50/kg).  Whenever I visit Canada I stock up on this salt because in Costa Rica you cannot buy iodine-free salt.

Ya know, googling for information can be helpful! lol

[H-K-J]

Like Sailor said reed the ingredients  :) $1.50

[mtncheesemaker]

Here we have Kroger brand "kosher" salt, which is pure salt, but in a coarser grain for sprinkling on the surface of the cheese.

[weaverlorelei]

Another salt you can find, at least during harvest, is Morton's Canning and Pickling salt.  Not anti caking agents, pure NaCl

[Alpkäserei]

Any canning salt will be pure salt, because it has to be.

If salt has iodine or anti-caking agents in it, then it will interfere with a lot of canning and pickling processes. Pickling, as you might know, is a fermentation process and the presence of just about any chemical salt additive will cause the process to go wrong. Same with sauerkraut where we have to use only pure salt.