Salting vs Brining

I've been brining my turkeys for the past several years, they're good but a pain and the brine I like is fairly expensive to prepare at this point. I've been reading a little about salting the bird for a few days before roasting a turkey, for meatier but equally juicy turkey meat.

Anyone here ever tried this? There's an LA Times link I can't seem to find, sorry.

I've heard good things about salted turkeys, but I don't think it would be any easier than a brine.

As for expensive... why? The beauty of brines are that you can use any ol' thing laying around the kitchen that you think might work well together.

What you're describing sounds really familiar to Zuni Cafe's method for roasting chicken. Here's an article about the same method applied to turkey:
Hope this helps.
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2007/11/try-dry-brining.html?mbid=rss_epilog

sujormik wrote:I've been brining my turkeys for the past several years, they're good but a pain and the brine I like is fairly expensive to prepare at this point. I've been reading a little about salting the bird for a few days before roasting a turkey, for meatier but equally juicy turkey meat.

Anyone here ever tried this? There's an LA Times link I can't seem to find, sorry.

America's Test Kitchen just had an episode about this last weekend (or week maybe). Basically, the reason for salting was that most people don't have room for a bucket of brine in their refrigerator. They loosened the skin all around the bird and rubbed kosher salt on the meat, under the skin. They had specific amount of salt per section of bird so you may want to find it. You let it sit for 24 hours and then rinse thoroughly and roast.

They also mentioned that you should only do this with a "natural" bird, or no previous brine like a Kosher bird or a commercial bird that had brine injected into the meat (Butterball/Jenny-O).

Harold McGee does not brine for Thanksgiving:


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/dining/12curi.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin

Hi,

I have been salting my turkey for a couple of years with really good results. Cook's Illustrated had an article and recipe in December, 1996. (Yes, it is adapted form Zuni's chicken recipe.) It takes some time and care (finger nails will cut the skin) to separate the skin from the breast, thighs, legs and back. Dry brining may be done one or two days in advance. The salt is completely rinsed from under the skin before cooking. This has the advantage of allowing you to place herbs/seasonings under the skin and to lightly salt the skin just before cooking. You can use those expensive ingredients at this point.

The technique allows for a very crisp skin with flavorful and moist meat.

One disadvantage compared to wet brining is the lower moisture content of the breast meat. The dry brining process means faster cooking and the breast meat can over cook before the dark meat is up to temp. Cook's Illustrated's solution is to ice pack the breast inside and out for an hour before cooking.

The turkey (12-14 pds) is cooked breast down for 45 minutes at 425 degrees and breast up at 325 degrees for another 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

This is an excellent way to cook a turkey.

Tim

Thank you ALL!! I'm going to study real hard and see how my mood is the week of T-day.

I have been using an epicurious recipe for the brine, it calls for a few gallons of apple cider along with slightly less salt than most, the drippings can be used for gravy (which is rare with a brined turkey apparently) and is great. But at $5/gallon for the cheap grocery store cider these days, that's another expense I don't need.