Raw wildcrafted Chondrus crispus sea moss, ready to be soaked and blended into sea moss gel

How to Make Sea Moss Gel: The Complete Method, With Ratios and Timings

Sea moss gel is what most people are actually after when they buy raw sea moss. The raw form is not the finished product, it is the ingredient. This is the method we print on the back of every bag, plus everything the bag does not have room for.

Written by Suhail Rivera, JD, founder of Alkaline Herb Shop. We source raw Chondrus crispus from small harvesters in Canada and Ireland, so the notes below come from handling it rather than from reading about it.

What you need

  • 2 oz of raw sea moss. That is half of a 4 oz bag.
  • Spring water. Enough to cover the moss for soaking, plus 2 cups for blending.
  • A bowl, a colander, kitchen scissors, a blender and a glass jar with a lid.

That is the whole list. No sweetener, no preservative, nothing else goes in.

The method

1. Rinse it twice

Put the raw moss in a colander and rinse it in spring water, twice. You are washing off sea salt and any sand or small shell fragments that travelled with it. Wild harvested sea moss comes from the sea, so a little grit is normal and rinsing is not optional.

2. Soak for up to 24 hours

Cover the rinsed moss in spring water and leave it. It will expand dramatically, roughly three to four times its dry volume, so use a bigger bowl than you think you need. Twelve hours is usually enough. Twenty four is the outside limit.

You will know it is ready when the strands are soft, pale, and rubbery rather than brittle. Dry sea moss snaps. Soaked sea moss bends.

3. Rinse again

Drain and rinse once more. The soaking water goes down the sink.

4. Cut it up before it goes near the blender

Take kitchen scissors to the soaked moss and cut it into short pieces. This is the step people skip and then regret. Long strands wrap around the blender blade and jam it. Thirty seconds with scissors saves you stopping to unwind it three times.

5. Blend with 2 cups of spring water

Add the cut moss and 2 cups of spring water to the blender. Blend until it is completely smooth with no visible strands. Depending on your blender this takes one to three minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides if it climbs.

Warm water blends faster than cold, but do not use hot water. Heat thins the finished gel.

6. Jar it and refrigerate

Pour into a clean glass jar and refrigerate. It sets within a few hours and firms up more overnight. Straight out of the blender it looks disappointingly thin. Give it until morning before you judge it.

How much does 2 oz make?

Roughly two to three cups of finished gel, depending how much water you use and how long you soaked it. A 4 oz bag runs two full batches, so one bag is somewhere between four and six cups of gel.

At 1 to 2 tablespoons a serving, a single batch lasts most people two to four weeks, which is roughly how long it keeps anyway.

How long does it keep?

Several weeks in the fridge in a sealed glass jar. Keep a clean spoon for it, because a spoon that has been in your mouth or in another jar shortens its life considerably.

It also freezes well. Ice cube trays are the easiest way. One cube is roughly a serving, and you can drop it straight into a smoothie. Frozen gel keeps for months.

Signs it has gone: a sour or fermented smell, visible mould, or a fizz when you open the jar. Fresh sea moss gel smells faintly of the sea and very little else. Throw out anything that smells wrong.

Troubleshooting

My gel is runny and will not set. Almost always too much water. Next batch, start with less and add more while blending only if the blender is struggling. Also give it a full night in the fridge before deciding, because it firms up considerably in the first twelve hours.

My gel is too thick to spoon. The opposite problem and easier to fix. Blend in a little more spring water.

It smells strongly of the sea. Rinse more thoroughly next time. Some sea smell is normal and correct. A lot of it usually means salt and debris were left on.

There is grit in it. Wild sea moss carries sand. Rinse twice before soaking and once after, and pick out any obvious fragments while you are cutting it up.

My blender keeps jamming. Cut the moss smaller. See step four.

The colour changed. Soaked sea moss goes paler than the dry form, sometimes almost translucent. That is normal and happens to all three colours.

Does the colour of the raw moss matter?

We sell purple and gold, gold and red, and they are all the same species, Chondrus crispus. The colour comes from pigments the plant produces in response to how much light it gets where it grew.

The method is identical for all three and the finished gel behaves the same way. Purple gel tends to look a little darker in the jar. That is the whole difference. We are not going to tell you one colour is better than another, because we sell all three and there is no good evidence for it.

A few questions we get

Do I have to use spring water?
It is what the bag says and what we use. Spring water has no chlorine, which is the main argument for it over tap.

Can I soak it for longer than 24 hours?
We would not. Past a day it starts to break down and the gel gets slack.

Can I make it without soaking?
No. Dry sea moss will not blend.

Is pool grown sea moss the same?
No. Pool grown moss is farmed on ropes in shallow tanks. Ours is wildcrafted, harvested from natural sea beds by small harvesters. It is a different product and it behaves differently in the jar.

How do I use the finished gel?
Most people stir 1 to 2 tablespoons into a smoothie, juice or food. It has very little flavour of its own, which is why it disappears into things easily.

What you need to buy

Any of our raw sea moss makes gel by this method. All of it is wildcrafted, sun dried, and packed with no preservatives or additives.

Or see all of them on the raw sea moss page.

Things to do with the gel once you have it

Precautions

  • Sea moss is naturally high in iodine. If you have a thyroid condition, speak to your physician before adding it to your diet.
  • Not for use during pregnancy or nursing.
  • Individuals under 18 and individuals with known medical conditions should consult a physician before use.

Suhail Rivera is not a medical professional. This article is about how to prepare a food, and it is not medical advice. Speak to your physician before starting any new herb or supplement, particularly if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or managing a health condition.