jryoung
Well-known member
Alright, got a few minutes. I started brining meats about 5 years ago with a Thanksgiving turkey....now I nearly won't go without it on anything that is a)dry, b)lean, c)low and slow, d)all of the above.
A basic brine is 1C of kosher/sea salt to 1gal of water. As long as you have this ratio you're in good shape. You may not need a full gallon of liquid, you may need a little more so you can adjust as necessary.
What I do is determine my total water content to submerg the meat. Obviously a brisket or butt is a lot less than a turkey. Once I know my total liquid content I make a "concentrate". That is, I put a smallish pot on the stove, add my total salt content to hit my ratio of salt:water (once I mix it all back together), add some water and my seasonings and heat it up.
Heating it does a couple of things, it helps dissolved the salt, especially in this level of concentrate and it exracts flavors and oils from your seasonings.
What seasonings? Just about anything. Here is where you make it your own. Once the salt dissolves, toss in whatever flavors you like and let the hot water and spices steep like a tea. Once it has co-mingled for about a half hour or so, let it come back to room temp or toss in some ice to cool it off.
Get your meat and container that it will sit in ready. Make sure it fits in your fridge. Mix the concentrate with the remainder of the water to cover the meat completely and place it in the fridge for 12-18 hours.
When your getting ready to cook it, pull it out of the brine, and discard (the brine). Let the meat air dry and warm up to room temperature. Probably about an hour for most big cuts. Once it is up to temp, put it on the cooking method of your choice and let it run.
You can experiment and practice with something like pork chops. They don't take a lot of brine, and are quick to cook but you can quickly see how the moisture content and flavor profile of the meat changes. Take 4 chops, brine two and leave the other to and cook them together and do a comparison.
If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.
Another cool tool of brining is 'brining to thaw". I did a moose roast over Memorial Day weekend. Since we were camping, thawing wasn't super convenient so I put the roast in a brine just before we left (Friday morning), by the time Saturday afternoon arrived it was thawed out and brined and ready to be toss in a cast iron dutch oven over the fire.
Seasonings:
Fresh garlic
Apples
Oranges
Lemons
Rosemary
Thyme
Sage
Star Anise
Allspice
Juniper Berries
Red Pepper Flakes
Chile de Arbol
Chipotle
Chinese five spice
really, whatever you got or like.
last night as I was shredding and bagging the butts and my buddy from down the road stopped by. He just got off the big pond from a tourney and had 30 pounds of King salmon fillets. I took 3 of them and brined them before I went to bed, guess what is in the smoker now? I didn't have to clean the racks and put everything away.
