Do you brine?

I know for pork & chicken that many people use a brine. However, I recently had some great grilled pork the other day and the guy making them said he never brines. I also see some recipes that call for salting opposed to brining.
I was just wondering if you all brine or not and if you really notice the difference.

*It should be noted that I am mainly referring to grocery store meat here, not berkshire

Personally, I only brine leaner meats like chicken breast and pork loin. I don't see any good reason to brine pork shoulder or chicken thighs other than perhaps introducing flavor into the meat. It does make a significant difference for these leaner cuts, and provides some insurance against over-cooking. However, there is a bit of a different texture/mouthfeel to brined meats, and not one I always like, but I find that a lot of guests do, so I have no problem with brining these particular cuts. Oh, and I just remembered, I will often brine a whole turkey for Thanksgiving. People like the juicy breast it produces and it sure as hell makes cooking it less stressful.

I would suggest you try it for yourself. Grill up some meat, half brined, half not, and try the difference for yourself and see which you prefer. We could all give you our opinions, but it's all personal preference.

Depends on what I am doing, what cut, method of cooking, what flavor I am shooting for, etc.

I have brined pork chops,& pork loins since they are typically lean. I do not brine ribs, shoulders or butts.

I brine shrimp when grilling or smoking, same goes for scallops.

I brine chicken when grilling or smoking(breasts, wings, thighs, legs, whole birds.

definitely increases the flavor, at least the brine I use, and keeps moisture and texture in seafood.

Be careful buying grocery pork & chicken that has been "enhanced" with a salt solution already.

Agreed!

Whole turkeys are the one thing I almost always brine, and I brine whole chickens now and then. I've done pork loins and chops and didn't think it made any huge difference in the texture or juiciness, but did add to the flavor.

Every year at Thanksgiving I brine a whole turkey breast. I'm not cooking for a lot of people so it's more than enough. I got the recipe from the Weber site and I cook it on my gas grill (except when I cooked for my Mom's last Thanksgiving when I cooked it in her oven). It's a very good and easy recipe. My Mom said it was the best turkey she'd ever had, and she went back for seconds.....then thirds. That was a memorable Thanksgiving, and I miss her a LOT! !

Do I brine?

a farm fresh turkey? sure do!

Chicken? seldom.

pork loin and chops? the store bought stuff certainly benefits from brining Although local farms may have some nice Berkshire pork loins which I would suggest against brining all cuts. But too, just because a farm may be raising some nice breeds, it doesn't mean they're always using good feed and other practices that would benefit the pork.

Shoulder, brisket, etc? No. Although I do usually inject.

Seafood? No. Especially some of the nice stuff I get from Succulent Seafood.

dan

im not a huge fan of brining..Ive tried it on several cuts and just did not care for the texture of the meat afterwards..
one exception is when I smoke salmon..I like to brine and then rinse and air dry before throwing on the smoker.

gonefishin wrote: the store bought stuff certainly benefits from brining

thats the stuff I wouldnt brine(or even buy), most has already been injected with a salt solution as it is.

Chicken wings take brine pretty well, and its a good way to get some flavor in there(I might brine my wings for the LTH picnic Sunday if I have time, either way they will be killer you should come out Dan).

A good brine recipe goes a long way.

jimswside wrote:

gonefishin wrote: the store bought stuff certainly benefits from brining

thats the stuff I wouldnt brine(or even buy), most has already been injected with a salt solution as it is.

Hi ya Jim

If I have to buy pork in the store I always stay away from the "enhanced" stuff all together. When I buy from a local store, I'll usually go to a local butcher shop or the Mexican grocery store. Both places have "un-enhanced" pork, which I brine on occasion.

For vegetables I normally go to Caputo's, H-mart or my small garden. For meat I'll usually go to the Mexican store. It's not heirloom livestock, but they've always got decent meat (never enhanced) at good prices.

Thanks for the tip on the wings! I've never brined them before...I'll give it a try.

oh yeah...one other thing that I've had success brining are baked potatoes. I don't know if you're supposed to brine them or not. But felt potatoes always benefit from added salt and brining may be an interesting way to introduce a little flavor, and moisture. I've only done it a couple of times but it offered a nice baked potato...good flavor and real nice texture inside.

I'll see what I have going on Sunday...thanks

dan

gonefishin wrote:

oh yeah...one other thing that I've had success brining are baked potatoes. I don't know if you're supposed to brine them or not. But felt potatoes always benefit from added salt and brining may be an interesting way to introduce a little flavor, and moisture. I've only done it a couple of times but it offered a nice baked potato...good flavor and real nice texture inside.

I'll see what I have going on Sunday...thanks

brining a potato, interesting, Im gonna try that.

Gonefishing - how do you like your Backwoods so far?

Head's Red BBQ wrote:Gonefishing - how do you like your Backwoods so far?

I read your question and just smiled. If only someone was in the room to take a picture...that's how satisfied I am


I smoked with an offset before moving into the BackWoods. Things usually turned out good, but it was sometimes a lot of work (and fire tending) to get there. It's also not that the BackWoods is less work, although it is less work...much less. The cooking results are just so consistent. I'm also glad I got the "hide-setter" option, which is a sort of bypass through the water pan. The BackWoods has really allowed me to improve , on so many levels, my smoked foods.

Today I'm smoking a corned beef brisket, we'll see how it turns out. Can't wait!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Increas ... ermometer/


I LOVE IT!
dan

jimswside wrote:

gonefishin wrote:

oh yeah...one other thing that I've had success brining are baked potatoes. I don't know if you're supposed to brine them or not. But felt potatoes always benefit from added salt and brining may be an interesting way to introduce a little flavor, and moisture. I've only done it a couple of times but it offered a nice baked potato...good flavor and real nice texture inside.

I'll see what I have going on Sunday...thanks

brining a potato, interesting, Im gonna try that.

Back in the day, when Outback Steakhouse made good food with quality ingredients (talk about distant memory ), they used to brine their baked potatoes overnight before baking. This resulted in some awesome spuds, with salty, crispy skin. My roommate was a server there, and used to smuggle potatoes home pretty regularly

gonefishin wrote:

Head's Red BBQ wrote:Gonefishing - how do you like your Backwoods so far?

I read your question and just smiled. If only someone was in the room to take a picture...that's how satisfied I am


I smoked with an offset before moving into the BackWoods. Things usually turned out good, but it was sometimes a lot of work (and fire tending) to get there. It's also not that the BackWoods is less work, although it is less work...much less. The cooking results are just so consistent. I'm also glad I got the "hide-setter" option, which is a sort of bypass through the water pan. The BackWoods has really allowed me to improve , on so many levels, my smoked foods.

Today I'm smoking a corned beef brisket, we'll see how it turns out. Can't wait!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Increas ... ermometer/


I LOVE IT!
dan

glad to hear..I remember you posting on here when you were thinking of buying one
I knew you would not be unhappy..they are great cookers..I had no need for my offset or my wsm's once I went to one..although I do still have sellers remorse with my offset..it was just so much fun to cook on (except for overnighters )
I did a corned beef on my Backwoods not too long ago..came out great..key is to soak the corned beef in water a day or two to get all that salt out

Khaopaat wrote:Back in the day, when Outback Steakhouse made good food with quality ingredients (talk about distant memory ), they used to brine their baked potatoes overnight before baking. This resulted in some awesome spuds, with salty, crispy skin. My roommate was a server there, and used to smuggle potatoes home pretty regularly

As soon as I get my oven fixed, ( damn power outage fryed something - which is funny because I live near 3 nuclear power plants, a hydro plant, and 100's of windmills and I still lose power pretty often), I am definitely going to try these.

14+ lbs of wings for tomorrow's LTH picnic are prepped and in the brine now. All natural chicken cut into drummies and wing portions. Tips reserved for stock.

Ill brine these for about 1.5 hours, then rinse and set aside for tomorrow.

brine:

ice cold water
koshe salt
brown sugar
garlic powder
onion powder
cajun seasoning - Tony C's

this brine really adds to the juicyness of the wings, and makes them pop.

Was thinking about doing a brine mix on some spare ribs, never really messed around with brine at all. How long should they soak in the brine for?

Cbot wrote:Was thinking about doing a brine mix on some spare ribs, never really messed around with brine at all. How long should they soak in the brine for?

I haven't found that brining adds much if anything to ribs. Entirely different than something like chicken or turkey white meat. If you like, an oily marinade for 4 - 12 hours can help add flavor, and boost final moistness.

..... ground meat??

I was fooling around yesterday, since it was raining, and decided to try something I've been pondering for awhile. I threw a pound of ground pork in a brine, I plan on pulling it out and smoking it over hickory. My goal is a burger that tastes like bacon.

Am I crazy?? Am I going to end up with a loose pile of paste in the bottom of my brine?? I have it in a dark Tupperware container in the fridge, so I can't really see what's happening and I don't want to peek.

I guess if it's a total disaster, I'm only out a pound of meat and some sugar, salt & molasses. If it's a semi disaster, I plan on casing some of the sausage and trying it that way.

My fingers are crossed.......

What do you guy's think??

Tim

Hi,

If you brine ground meat, it would not be hours rather an hour or much, much less. Ground meat has tremendous surface area and practically no depth to penetrate, it would be swift.

Please tell us what happened with your efforts.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:......it would be swift..

Please tell us what happened with your efforts.

I was wondering about that, but doesn't the brine reach an equilibrium, so it won't overbrine?? I may be all wet, just seems like I remember that from someplace. I'm planning on taking it out tonight, that'll be 36 hours (half the time as bacon takes), and let it "dry" overnight before tomorrows smoke.

I'll be sure to let everyone know what happens, no matter what. Disasters can be fun sometimes too.

Tim

Khaopaat wrote:Back in the day, when Outback Steakhouse made good food with quality ingredients (talk about distant memory ), they used to brine their baked potatoes overnight before baking

My brother lives in western New York, and he & his missus once gifted me with local delicacies: white hotdogs* and salt potatoes. Salt potatoes are basically red potatoes boiled in an ungodly amount of salt - like 4 lbs of potates and 1 lb of salt. They're actually sold packaged together in the store. The water boils at a higher temperature and allegedly makes the potatoes creamier on the the inside as described here.

Me, I just thought they were really salty.

Giovanna

* white hotdogs taste kind of like weisswurst. hmmmm. there's a translation thing going on there . . . .

Giovanna wrote:The water boils at a higher temperature and allegedly makes the potatoes creamier on the the inside as described here.

Me, I just thought they were really salty.

The boiling point can't be it. Unless I'm totally off in my math, by the recipe, the amount of salt should only raise the boiling point about 2 degrees centigrade. I have a hard time believing 2 degrees would make that much a difference in creaminess. (Which your comment implies that it doesn't, so I agree.)

Those "white hot dogs" come from Zweigles in Rochester NY. There are both natural casing and skinless versions. VERY good eats!

http://www.zweigles.com/

Geo

I brine chicken wings and legs and whole birds and pork tenderloins.

Nothing else comes to mind.

There's a dozen drumettes in my fridge right now, soaking in Goya Criollo Mojo and some Louisiana hot sauce. Tomorrow, I'll rinse and dry the wings, rub w Magic Dust and smoke.

I brine pork and poultry parts, some cuts of beef, but in an oddball way.

I picked up a (at one time) very expensive vacuum tumbler. Trying to sell it to the home market, the spice company that put it out was selling it for almost 2/3 the cost of a commercial stainless unit while this one was plastic. $80 at drugstore.com at the end. The turkey sized drum was very expensive, I got it on a bargain cave deal from cabalas for $25 rather than the over $100+ cost. My investment is $110 and far cheaper than the more expensive and smaller revio unit which us a ripoff of the original manual vacuum home unit from Minn.

I run most meats through it depending on what I want to do. If it is a really cheap cut of beef for things like feeding my kid's HS athletic groups (those animals eat anything) I will use a jaccard on the meat first. The results have the taste and texture of something far more expensive.

Cathy2 wrote:Please tell us what happened with your efforts.

Hmmmmmm, I left it in the brine for 48 hrs, then took it to friends to smoke. I have to say, the beer we drank waiting on the smoker was the best part of the day. The meat wasn't bad, but it needs some tweaking..... maybe this winter. For now, I'm going to call it a dud. We ate it all, but we weren't sure why.

Tim