Difference between brine and cure?

leo123

    I know that you brine turkey and cure bacon.

     But can I cure turkey? 

   I just wanted to step up my game a little bit.

   I'm in Canada and had a hard time finding curing salts, so steve from caledon suggested and I purchased readycure. 1% nitrate.

   I'm looking into smoking a Turkey. Trying something new.

  I'm trying to impress my wife and her family for Christmas this year. So I was thinking on Smoking a turkey. I'm a little confused, I know that  you can  brine a Turkey which I have done in the past with great results, but looking into smoking a turkey they say that you have to leave the bird in a solution for about three days as well as inject it all over.

   Just wondering if I should stay with a 24 hour brine or add some of the readycure to the brine and know how long.

   One of the get together we had in the past we had it catered. It was smoked turkey. It was pre carved and the way it turned out no one ever thought that it was a turkey. They thought it was ham.

 It was expensive about $75 a bird but it was goood. 

So I'm thinking and trying to get the same results.

   Anyone with any thoughts would be appreciated.

     Thanks.

FlashkaBob

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NPHuskerFL

Curing salt would not typically be used in brining a turkey. A wet cure on say a pork belly for bacon or ham would.

NPHuskerFL

Wouldn't a sugar style cure minus the curing salt injected and also brined and then a cold smoke to a IT of 160℉-165℉ work?

nolaegghead

From wiki:

Curing is any of various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite^[1] or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking. The use of food dehydration was the earliest form of food curing.^[1]

Zmokin

Yes, you can cure turkey with nitrites, I do it with drumsticks and thighs periodically.
It's like making it a turkey ham.  I even did it with wings once.

I've never cured a turkey breast because I don't like the breast meat from turkeys or chickens.
The only way I have found I can enjoy chicken breast is when I make a chicken salad sandwich.
I'm basically smothering it with mayonnaise just like tuna-fish sandwiches to give it some "moisture".

nolaegghead

Addition of nitrites keeps the meat pink in color and gives it a "ham" taste.  Nitrates don't do anything but convert to nitrite over time, so that stuff your friend has probably has nitrite in it.  That would work. 

I experiment all the time with nitrites in my cures.  There was a recent link on here where someone used nitrite in their turkey brine.  Looked good and I'm sure tasted good too.  The biggest complaint I hear about salt cures is the result being too salty.  They have something called equilibrium brining (or something like that) where you brine for a long time just the right amount of salt. But that's not necessary.  Go 5% salt, follow some recipe for the amount of nitrite for a 5% brine and 24 hours should be sufficient.  Or go 3% for 72 hours.  You can carve off a piece and taste it - if it's too salty, soak in fresh water.  You're not going to undo the nitrite oxidation of the myoglobin, don't worry about un-hamifying it.

SGH

@leo123‌
You absolutly can cure a turkey. There is a cure that is specifically for this very purpose. I use it on green hams to make a home made version of Honey Baked Hams. It called:
Processors Choice Brown Sugar Cure
A478-0050.
They make several but this is the one that you want for green hams and turkeys. Trust me. I been doing this for almost 40 years.

DMW

For curing turkey, dark meat works best.
http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1174089/what-else-to-do-with-turkey#latest