Reuse a brine?

MikeP624 · January 21

Can you save your brining liquid and reuse it? We eat a fair amount of chicken and i made a brine on saturday for a spatchcock chicken. Can i keep it in the fridge and reuse it later this week for some boneless chicken breast? Is there any health issues because of the raw chicken?

If you cannot reuse it, does anyone ever brine a bunch of chicken at once and then dry it and freeze it? It seems like it could get expensive to make a fresh brine everytime i do chicken.

FanOfFanboys · January 21

Good question

DaveM · January 21

I don't know the chemistry behind it, but it would seem that the salt would get used up. My brines are primarily Kosher salt and sugar, which are both dirt cheap and not worth saving. I think the solution will kill any bacteria, but it just doesn't seem like a healthy way to save money.

MikeP624 · January 21

I typicall add an onion, a head of garlic, some lemons and a bunch of thyme or tarragon. So it starts to added up. Not sure all the other stuff really makes a difference, maybe i will just switch to purely salt and sugar.

Skiddymarker · January 21

It would seem to me that the ratio of salt to sugar to water, although not exact, is probably very close to the same every time you make a brine. Once you have brined something, the ratio is not the same, the meat has taken on some of the components of the brine. If you were to reuse the brine, the effect of the remaining salt, sugar and spices would not be the same as it was the first time. I don't think there is anything unsafe about reusing a fridge stored brine within a few days for the same food type, and I doubt the results would be drastically different. I do think the results would be drastically different if you tried to brine three or four days in a row with the same brine.

As my Grandmother always said - "You can only add so much water to the soup before it becomes dishwater".

td66snrf · January 21

I do it all the time. I use it twice. I tried three times and it lost it's umph. I freeze the brine so when I want to cook with it I just pull it out and put the chicken in it. I'm still using the brine I made for my Christmas turkey. There was a gallon of it so I just put it in four 1gal ziplocks and stuck them in the freezer. I just used it some turkey thighs last week and everything was good but like I said earlier that brine then went down the drain.

makis · January 21

Not an expert but I have read that it is dangerous to reuse the brine.

gerhardk · January 21

I would tend to agree that on a cost benefit type of analysis it's best to discard brine after use. I can't imagine that the ingredients like lemons, onions and garlic have much potency after the initial use. I am not really sure that brining is necessary for chicken, we had a spatchcock chicken yesterday and it was nice and juicy without the benefit of a brine.

Gerhard

P.S. As long as it doesn't make the people you serve sick do what makes you happy but I would not bother.

Gerhard

U_tarded · January 22

I wouldn't because of the chemistry. Not that something would grow in the brine but your ratios are off and osmosis wouldn't be as strong. You would be bring in juices that came out of the first brine into the second brine. Also you don't know how much salt/sugar is left so you wouldn't want to add salt or sugar to adjust for the loss after the first brine because you don't want to over salt it. What I do is guess how much water is needed to barely submerge my cook and adjust salt sugar ratio accordingly. This way waste is minimal. A quick ratio would be 1 part kosher salt and 1/2 part sugar to 1 part water. (Based on typical brine of 1 cup kosher salt, 1/2 cup sugar to 1 gallon.)

td66snrf · January 22

MikeP624 said:

Can you save your brining liquid and reuse it? We eat a fair amount of chicken and i made a brine on saturday for a spatchcock chicken. Can i keep it in the fridge and reuse it later this week for some boneless chicken breast? Is there any health issues because of the raw chicken?

If you cannot reuse it, does anyone ever brine a bunch of chicken at once and then dry it and freeze it? It seems like it could get expensive to make a fresh brine everytime i do chicken.

The question was can you reuse it. From my experience yes you can. I haven't killed anyone in a long time. There is that one legal case still pending but he's an ambulance chaser and he was sick before I fed him. To me it's more of a convenience thing and not wasting than a cost saving thing. I can go into my freezer pull out frozen brine throw poultry in it and I'm ready to go. It my even make your spatchcocked chicken better.

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