From the ledger

Everything here was alive once.

Kept, not killed. Every batch is written down.

A young Anaheim chile plant in a terracotta pot, held in one hand.
The process in four steps: grown, smoked, dried, kept in salt.

How it started

Salt of the Dead started with a smoker, a garden of chiles and a notebook.

The first salt was simple. Jalapeños went into cold apple smoke for four hours, then dried at 135°F for nine more until they snapped. They were ground into flake salt and dated 12 July 2026. It worked, and we kept going.

Since then every batch gets an entry in the ledger: what went in, how long it smoked, and what went wrong. Chili-Citrus Dust took seven tries. The best one, Dust 5, can never be made again, because the Big Jim chiles ran out. It lives in the ledger now and nowhere else.

That’s the idea behind the name. Salt is how people have always kept things. We take something that grew, catch it at its best, and keep it so you can feel it later on the rim of a glass.

Rows of young chile plants in pots, each with a handwritten label.
Potted chile plants growing outdoors in the sun.
Dried orange slices and dried chiles on a white plate.
Ledger entry Nº 01 for Smoked Chili Salt: jalapeños from the Raleigh garden, cold smoked over apple pellets for four hours, dried at 135°F for nine hours.
Ledger entry for Chili-Citrus Dust listing seven batches. Batch 5 is circled in red.
Kent Bell, the cook behind Salt of the Dead.

Flavors You Can Feel

The company behind the salts.

We’re interested in food you notice with more than your tongue: the buzz of a flower that makes your lips hum, the tingle of Sichuan pepper, the slow build of a smoked chile.

Salt of the Dead is made by Kent Bell in Raleigh, North Carolina. He grows the chiles, runs the smoker and keeps the ledger.

Correspondence

Write it in the ledger.

Bars, shops, events, or a question about a batch.

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