There's also a phenomenon called "salting out" that further decreases the chances those flavor molecules make it into the meat. We are therefore not big fans of wet-brined meat for the same reason that we are proponents of buying air-chilled chickens : More water means more dilute flavor, while less water translates to more concentrated flavor.
Plus, all that extra water impedes browning, so your wet-brined roast will have a much harder time developing that wonderful brown crust and crispy poultry skin that makes a roast so good.
That doesn't mean wet brines are totally out. In some cases they're still a good choice, including fish that might benefit from a rinse if, say, it's still fresh but has juices that are borderline smelly or will be served raw some sushi chefs wet-brine some types of fish before cutting and serving ; fish that are going to be cold-smoked you want to form a sticky pellicle that a wet brine helps achieve ; some vegetables that salt doesn't adhere to well whole carrots, zucchini, and asparagus ; and fried chicken, where the wet brine helps form the eventual batter.
Dry-brining cuts out the unnecessary added water by using the natural moisture content of the meat to create a concentrated brine that, when given enough time, is naturally absorbed back into the meat before cooking. If you've ever made eggplant Parmesan or zucchini fritters, you know that salt draws out moisture from ingredients, and the same applies to proteins. Season a steak with kosher salt, and within a few minutes, you will witness osmosis at work: Liquid from the steak will bead up on the surface of the meat, drawn out by the salt.
Wait another ten minutes, and that liquid from the beef will have started to dissolve the salt, forming a concentrated brine. That concentrated liquid brine, formed from the meat's natural juices, is what makes this process "brining" and not just a ridiculous rebranding of mere salting.
That dissolved salt is then absorbed by the meat through diffusion, moving from an area of high concentration the surface of the steak to a lower concentration one the steak's interior. As with a traditional brine, the salt re-shapes and dissolves muscle proteins, allowing the meat to absorb and retain moisture. To complete the dry-brining process, the moisture that was initially drawn out of the meat is reabsorbed to counteract the shift in salt concentration from surface to interior, leaving you with a well-seasoned piece of meat that will now better retain its natural moisture content during cooking.
You're tricking your food into brining itself with its own juices, and all it takes is some salt and a little patience. Still unconvinced about the merits of dry-brining? Or do you need to state your case to a stubborn friend or family member who insists on splashing around with a salt-water-bathed turkey every year?
Here are the bullet points in favor of dry-brining. Traditional wet-brining is a logistical nightmare when you're working with something as big as a turkey. Who has giant food-safe buckets kicking around for plunging a bird into? Or the fridge space to keep the soaking turkey cold for a few days? And if you decide to brine in a giant cooler, do you really want to spend a good portion of a morning painstakingly sanitizing it once the brining is done so that you don't end up serving salmonella sodas at your next cookout?
Then there's the making of the brine itself. Having to whisk and whisk and whisk to dissolve a bunch of salt how much was it again?? Did I get that ratio right? With dry-brining, all you have to do is Salt Bae that sucker up on a wire rack—lined baking sheet , and pop it in the fridge.
So much simpler. The wire rack, by the way, is important: You want air to circulate fully around the meat and not have it sitting in a puddle of its own juices. Kenji has spent a lot of time on the brining subject and has written about how salt is really the only seasoning that achieves significant flavor penetration , whether you go with a dry or traditional brine method.
As mentioned above, traditional brines chock-full of aromatics smell nice and all, but those flavors, beyond the salt in the solution, are not transmitted to the meat. Simply sprinkling your food with salt and giving it time to do its work creates much more evenly and deeply seasoned meat than the surface-level flavor you get from salting right before cooking.
As mentioned earlier, dry-brined meats and fish taste more of themselves than they do when wet-brined because they aren't holding onto extra water weight, which dilutes flavor. Just as you wouldn't be thrilled about getting a bland, watered-down cocktail at a bar that touts the skills of its head "mixologist," you shouldn't serve people waterlogged turkey or chicken. Dry-brined meat and fish comes out perfectly juicy and firm after cooking. Given time, salt will perform its protein-dissolving magic, which allows meat to hold onto its natural moisture during cooking.
For soft-fleshed fish like mackerel, salting also helps firm up the meat, making it both easier to maneuver during cooking and more pleasant to eat. Along with producing juicier meat, dry-brining also helps achieve better surface browning, crunchier crust on steaks and beef roasts, and crispier poultry and pork skin. Once the moisture that initially beaded up on the surface of the meat is drawn back in to balance the high salt concentration of the interior and also evaporates off it , the meat's surface is left much drier than ever before.
And because the moisture in the meat isn't being squeezed out as much thanks to the proteins dissolving and muscle fibers relaxing, the surface of the meat stays drier during cooking. Dry surfaces brown, wet ones don't. So when you blast a dry-brined piece of meat with heat, whether searing in a skillet or finishing in a hot oven, you achieve Maillard browning really fast, which means you're less likely to overcook your food in the quest for a mahogany crust.
And the same goes for crispy, crackly skin, which needs to be nice and dry before it can get to that stage. A dry brine can get you the bronzed, crunchy chicken and turkey skin you've always dreamed of. Traditional brine just won't, and you'll be left with pale, soft, and flabby skin instead.
To produce extra-crispy poultry and pork skin, we like to mix in a little baking powder with the kosher salt , which gets sprinkled over it. The slightly alkaline baking powder raises the skin's pH levels, which allows proteins to break down more efficiently, giving you crisper, more evenly browned results.
Simultaneously, it combines with the bird's natural juices, forming carbon dioxide gas that leaves you with a layer of tiny bubbles. It's these bubbles that increase the skin's surface area, allowing it to develop a crunchy texture once cooked. Hopefully, you're now on board with this whole dry-brining game and are ready to give it a shot.
Before you do, here are some general guidelines to follow for dry-brining projects. Kosher salt is a must for dry-brining because its texture makes for easy sprinkling and doesn't clump like table salt. All of us on the Serious Eats culinary team favor Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt as our basic kitchen salt.
When seasoning for dry-brining, season from up high, around eight to ten inches above the food, letting the salt granules fall evenly over the surface of your food. Season the entire surface of the food that is being treated, on all sides—top, bottom, edges, and in those pesky crevices some roasts like birds have between the wings and breast. The meat must be completely submerged in the solution during the brining process.
Place a heavy ceramic plate or bowl on top of the meat to prevent it from floating in the brine. Place the meat in the container and cover with plain water. Brining does not preserve meat.
If storing the meat in the refrigerator during brining, check to make sure that the container will fit in your refrigerator. A container large enough to hold a whole turkey might be too big for your fridge. If storing the meat in a cooler during brining, you must keep the meat and brine cold without diluting the mixture. Put the meat and brine directly in the cooler, then place Ziploc bags filled with ice or reusable gel packs into the brine solution.
Another approach is to put the meat and brine into a turkey oven roasting bag inside the cooler, then pack ice or gel packs around the bag. Some recipes call for rinsing meat after brining, while others skip this step.
Do whatever the recipe calls for. Rinsing is common in recipes with a very high salt concentration or that contain sugar, since sugar can burn on the surface of meat during cooking.
Regardless of whether you rinse or not, make sure to pat the meat dry with paper towels before cooking. One solution is to place brined poultry on a rack over a rimmed baking sheet pan , pat it dry with paper towels, and let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator for several hours. This allows some moisture to evaporate from the skin so it browns better. Try hours for chicken and hours for turkey. The higher temperature gets the fat under the skin hot enough so that it browns the skin.
Enhanced meat is injected by the manufacturer with a solution of water, salt, and other ingredients to enhance the moisture content and flavor of the meat. If you choose to brine enhanced meat, take care to not brine it too long, or the meat may turn out too salty.
Having said that, there are people who like to brine self-basted turkeys and report that they do not turn out too salty. See Enhanced Meat for information on how to identify enhanced meat in the supermarket. Most chicken sold in the United States is water-chilled during slaughter.
The chickens are quickly cooled by immersing them in a tank of ice-cold, chlorinated water. In contrast, air-chilled chicken is cooled by moving chickens through a series of refrigerated chambers over several hours, a more time-consuming and costly process. Their tests showed that air-chilled chicken absorbed 3. The reason for this result is that retained water limits the ability of water-chilled chicken to take-up the brine solution, so not as much salt gets into the meat to work its magic.
Can you brine water-chilled chicken? But you may like the results better if you can find an air-chilled chicken at the supermarket. Some people find that brined meat is just too salty for their tastes. Will a brine still work if you cut the amount of salt in half? After cooking and tasting, they found that the meats brined at half-strength were a lot less salty than those brined at full-strength, but the improvement in moisture content was marginal, at best.
They recommend using a salt substitute that contains a mix of sodium chloride and potassium chloride, as products containing potassium chloride only produced an off-taste, in their opinion. Discard the brine solution after use. The brine will contain proteins, blood, and other stuff from the meat that soaked in it. From a food safety standpoint, it is not advisable to reuse brine, even if it is boiled first.
Meat can be brined and frozen for later use. As with any meat that is frozen and thawed, some texture and moisture is sacrificed because ice crystals damage the meat cells in the freezing process. Please enable all cookies to use this feature. First, the classic wet brine. Then just adjust the amounts to whatever is necessary to fully submerge your chicken. Any kind of sweetener works white, brown, honey, or molasses, just to name a few and you can add about the same amount as the salt, or less if you prefer.
Step 2: Bring your brining mixture to a boil and stir to allow the salt and sugar if using to dissolve. Then let it cool completely. Do not try to submerge raw chicken into hot or warm liquid. It will raise the temperature of the meat, which could lead to loads of bad bacteria. Step 3: Once the brine is completely cooled, submerge the chicken into the liquid.
You can leave the bird whole, or break it down into pieces first. Cover the pot with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 12 hours or up to 2 days. Step 4: After the desired length of time, remove the chicken from the brining liquid, dry with paper towels and cook.
Here are the basics to a dry brine. Step 2 : Use paper towels to pat dry your chicken. Step 3: Generously sprinkle the brine mixture over the entire bird, rubbing it into the skin, until the outside of the bird is completely covered. Step 4: Loosely cover chicken with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 12 hours or up to 3 days. Step 5: Rinse off the brine, pat the chicken dry, and cook. Make sure the skin is very dry before cooking so that it will get nice and crispy.
Now, what types of brine should you use for the style of cooking? How to Brine a Chicken for Grilling Brining meat before grilling is a worthwhile step because it will help keep moisture in lean cuts of meat that would otherwise dry out over the high heat of a grill.
You can use a classic wet brine of water, salt, sugar, and spices of your choice, think cumin, coriander, garlic, cinnamon, black pepper, etc. Grab a few extra beers and use them in the brine! How to Brine a Chicken for Frying It may seem impossible to improve on fried chicken, but the secret to an even more amazing piece of fried chicken is brining.
Giving the chicken a brine means the meat is seasoned and juicy, so your chicken has tons of flavor both in the breading and in the meat.
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