To Brine or Not to Brine--That is my question

tikigriller

I did a quick search for  the answer, but I am out of time to make a choice.  I brined a spatchcock chicken for the first time last week, and it was amazingly juicy, but it was WAY too salty.  Not sure if the brine caused the juice or the pellet grill.  Tomorrow I am going to do one on the BGE and one on the Pellet grill, but I can't figure out if I should brine them or not.

If I don't want salty, is there another brine method besides water and salt?  Do you have a particular mix you use with your brine to get the juice but not the salt?

Any suggestions here would be key.  If I have to do any overnight prep, I have to get started in about 2 hours.  We like our skin to be crispy, and the BGE is not broken in enough to do more than about 350.

Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated as I continue to try and impress my wife so I can keep all my new toys!

RedSkip

Poultry = Brine

4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Salt
1/4 Cup Sugar

Mattman3969

If the birds are already injected with a solution I would prolly skip the brine.  

tikigriller

RedSkip said:

Poultry = Brine

4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Salt
1/4 Cup Sugar

Is there a set amount of time one should let soak in the brine?

GrateEggspectations

Hard to tell what caused it to be overly salty without knowing about your approach. The only time I've had a brine be too salty is when I have failed to rinse it off the meat thoroughly. When I rinse well, it turns out perfectly. 

tikigriller

GrateEggspectations said:

Hard to tell what caused it to be overly salty without knowing about your approach. The only time I've had a brine be too salty is when I have failed to rinse it off the meat thoroughly. When I rinse well, it turns out perfectly. 

Well I did not have any sugar!  I did the 4 cups water to 1/4 cup salt.  To cover the chicken, I want to say it was 12 cups of water total, so it was 3/4 cups salt.  I imagine the sugar counteracts the salt?  I also let it soak overnight if memory serves correctly and removed it the next day, rinsed well, and blew a hairdryer on it to dry it out some for  the crispy skin.

Hans61

Did you rinse the brine off before seasoning?

tikigriller

Hans61 said:

Did you rinse the brine off before seasoning?

Yes.  Perhaps I needed to rinse even longer.  I'm not kidding.....I couldn't sleep that night because I was so bloody dehydrated from all the salt!

J-dubya

Mattman3969 said:

If the birds are already injected with a solution I would prolly skip the brine.  

This. Lots and lots of commercial/commodity birds come injected - if you bring them they can come out super salty.   

tikigriller

These are two full chickens from Costco.  I take it the bag will say if they are injected?  (I told you all I am new to this actual cooking stuff!)

GrateEggspectations

I've used this brine, from @The Cen-Tex Smoker, with great success....
http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1155797/pork-chop-brine
Note the brine times included in the post.

It looks to be similar proportions to what you have used. When employing a brine, I do not season with any additional ingredients after brining (it's been my experience that the meat just doesn't need it!).

RedSkip

Sugar and salt are a basic brine.  Sugar and salt will help breakdown the protein in the meat, however, since sugar's molecular structure are larger than salt.  It is really the salt which is aiding in the "juicy & tender" meat.  

Sugar helps in flavor but it rarely penetrates deep into the meat, therefore it really just helps in the cooking process.  Sugar burns at high temps and helps color the protein, making the protein more appetizing.  Even at low temps when the sugars are not truly burning, they are helping brown the meat.

Long story short, salt is a "need" while sugar is a "want".  You can skip the sugar if you'd like.

Saltiness depends on your tastes.  I like 4 hrs for 20-30 wings.  About 6 hours for a package of chicken breasts.  6-8 hours for a whole bird.  There is a theme, longer time for more meat quantity.  (All of which use the brine recipe I posted above)

Lastly, most pre-brined meats will say on the package or in the ingredients on the back of label.  Sodium, Calcium, and Potassium chlorides are all forms of "salt".

Darby_Crenshaw

tikigriller said:

If I don't want salty, is there another brine method besides water and salt?  Do you have a particular mix you use with your brine to get the juice but not the salt?

A brine, or a marinade, by definition MUST contain salt. 

Briney deep

'marine'.  Etc

you may have made a hurry-up 10% brine. Try a 5%. 

anything else is really just a sauce. 

If you want to add moisture to a meat, you need some differential. Salt gives you the way in. 

You can try injecting. It's mechanical, but it simulates moist meat. In reality youbare forcing liquid temporarily into the meat. Brining actually introduces moisture 

(standing by for the cool kids to laugh and deride and then fist bump each other, despite not knowing what they are talking about. First day of school and all the insecure bullies are already in full force.  Sniff sniff)

blind99

lots of questions up there, to take you down lots of paths! the pellet grill did not add juice to your bird, unless there's some sort of new attachment.

most traditional brines are gradient brines.  they use have a high salt % in the brine, higher than you would want in the final product.  the trick is, you pull the meat from the brine before the salt content is too high in the final product.  from what you're saying, it got too salty, so it's as simple as that.  (typically, food tastes too salty above about 2%.)  sugar is added to brine to help mask the salty flavor.  i usually use half the weight of the salt.

so whatever you did, you should either pull the bird out sooner, or use less salt in the brine.  

to truly know how much salt your bird has, you need to do an equilibrium brine, using a bird that you know has no added salt to start with.  there isn't time to do that for tomorrow night's cook, but if you good "chefsteps equilibrium brine" you'll get good information.

crispy skin... a whole other can of worms.  brining tends to make the skin real wet, making it harder to get crispy skin.  i'll pass on that one to the crispy skin experts.

tikigriller

Thanks. 

The  skin was definitely crispy. We took it out of the brine, and like I said before, simply blew a hair dryer on low for about 3 to 5 minutes all over the skin and it dried out the skin enough to where I came out crispy out of the grill. I'm going to brined it again, but I'm going to put it in in the morning, and remove it much sooner than I did last time. I think I simply left it in there way too long. Plus all at the sugar to the mixture. Thanks everyone for the insight

blind99

Sounds good! Looking forward to hearing / seeing results. And bonus points if you photograph the hair drying of the bird pretty sure my wife would kill me if she caught me using her hair dryer on dinner!

RedSkip

@blind99. My wife may not kill me, but she would make me sleep in the other room for a night, oh the dirty looks... Ha!

blind99

@redskip I hear ya!

Jupiter Jim

tikigriller said:

I did a quick search for  the answer, but I am out of time to make a choice.  I brined a spatchcock chicken for the first time last week, and it was amazingly juicy, but it was WAY too salty.  Not sure if the brine caused the juice or the pellet grill.  Tomorrow I am going to do one on the BGE and one on the Pellet grill, but I can't figure out if I should brine them or not.

If I don't want salty, is there another brine method besides water and salt?  Do you have a particular mix you use with your brine to get the juice but not the salt?

Any suggestions here would be key.  If I have to do any overnight prep, I have to get started in about 2 hours.  We like our skin to be crispy, and the BGE is not broken in enough to do more than about 350.

Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated as I continue to try and impress my wife so I can keep all my new toys!

The Egg needs no breaking in time! I just don't understand where that comes from. Eggs get fired up right out of the box at very high temps all the time. If you don't believe me what do you think will happen at the Big Green Eggtoberfest? I think they sell like 200 demo eggs and do you really think all those cooks are going to keep temps under 250? Just my thoughts.

jtcBoynton

@Jupiter Jim  The ceramics do not need any break in.  My understanding is that the recommendation for moderate heat for the first few cooks was related to the glue used for the gasket.  

The break-in need comes directly from BGE:

Do NOT Cook at High Temperatures Your First Use

This may damage the gasket before it can properly seat itself. Your first few cooks should be under 350°F/177°C to allow the gasket adhesive to fully cure and adhere to the EGG.

Jupiter Jim

jtcBoynton said:

@Jupiter Jim  The ceramics do not need any break in.  My understanding is that the recommendation for moderate heat for the first few cooks was related to the glue used for the gasket.  

The break-in need comes directly from BGE:

Do NOT Cook at High Temperatures Your First Use

This may damage the gasket before it can properly seat itself. Your first few cooks should be under 350°F/177°C to allow the gasket adhesive to fully cure and adhere to the EGG.

I know about that warning but I'm telling you that the eggs that get used at egg fest the temps are way higher, I always do pizza's at fest between 450-550 and in the last 3 years I have not had any failures of any kind on new right out of the box eggs. The earlier eggs from years past had gasket problems and even with the first few cooks under 350 there were gasket failures but I think BGE has that solved. I have even taken hot plate setters out and doused them with water to cool them quickly and haven't had one crack yet.

tikigriller

Ok.....the cook is done.  Pictures to follow in next post since they are on the phone and it is easier to type on a keyboard.

One on each Grill again...Pellet and BGE.

Two full chickens, spatchcocked, with the Marinade Recipe from the Biggreenegg.com website.  Very tastey.  Here is the link if anyone wants to try it:

http://biggreenegg.com/recipes/spatchcocked-chicken/

Put the chickens both on the grills skin down for 15 minutes...but I got sidetracked and they made it to 20 minutes.  As you will see from the pictures, the BGE Chicken suffered from the extra minutes, where the Pellet Chicken did not suffer.

Flipped chickens and let cook at 400 on both grills until 165, which equated to just under an hour.  I was very surprised for some reason to see both chickens cook at almost the exact same speed as one another.

BGE Chicken was direct on a raised Grill.  Temp control went very well this time, as I never let it get too hot and played with it.  Started the fire with plenty of time to really get it stable before food.  Impressed with the BGE and myself! 

Both Chickens very moist and great flavor.

BGE Chicken I put a handful of Apple Chips in the fire, and the result was exactly what you would have expected....a nice smoky tone to it, but nothing over the top.  You can see a slight smoke ring on the chicken from the BGE.

Pellet Chicken had no smoke chips, and used Hickory Pellets.  Chicken came out sweeter than the BGE chicken.  Again, both really good, just a different flavor.

Would have liked to marinate longer, but life got in the way, so 2 hours was as long as I could do.  I decided to NOT brine the chickens...and they came out just fine.  I felt no need for them to be any juicier.  I will try to brine again next time and see how much of a difference it makes. Based on the packaging, they were not previously brined as mentioned above.

Decided to also throw some shrimp in the mix, and again, the difference between the two was smoky flavor on the BGE and less on the Pellet.  Both good,....we all decided we liked the BGE Shrimp better.

There you have it!  Will go post pictures now for your viewing pleasure.  Thanks again for all the insight.....it makes doing the cook so much easier to have more knowledge from everyone!

tikigriller

Getting ready for the cooks.....
As promised, hair dryer on low for about 5 minutes before marinating. 
Off the grill. The charred one was the BGE due to those extra oops minutes. Did not ruin anything though. Tasted fine. 
The is the chicken carved up. First one is the pellet grill 
This one is the BGE. 
A shot of the shrimp. Ones on the right are from the BGE
And all the left over chicken, cut up with a destination of Chicken Enchiladas in its future!!!
So bloody good. Never thought cooking could be such a hobby!!!!!  Smash burgers tonight!!!!!!

blind99

hah!  food looks great! i could eat a big pile of those shrimp!  that's very cool to get to cook things side by side on each grill.  looks like you're quickly getting the hang of the egg, hope you enjoy it.  now give back the wife's hairdryer

Zmokin

instead of just rinsing off the brine, you can also soak it in clean water for awhile to help pull some of the salt out.

tikigriller

There is some smoked chicken in those enchiladas and they are seriously good!!  I've never had a "smoky enchilada" before, but I will again!!!!
Hmmmmmm.....I wonder how those would react to cooking in the egg vs the oven!!!  Glass could go in the egg, right?

PA Dutch Egger

There is a product from Kosmo's Q called "Chicken Soak" that I have found works well on poultry.  I brine/soak all my poultry and pork then rinse and freeze if I am not cooking it right away.

bhedges1987

I don't think I've ever brined anything.  Maybe I should give it a try.

Cookinbob

When I brine whole chicken I go 2 hours or less or it's too salty. Put your bird and brine in a zip loc bag and you won't need 3 quarts of brine

BBQbutler

I always brined my birds when using my Webber kettles, WSM's and gasser.  Had the BGE for 2 months and the spatchcock I have cooked I decided not to brine.  I was thinking of brining one and not the other.   Decided not to brine since everything on the egg has been soooo juicy.  The spatchcock unbrinded was better than any of my brinded birds ever were.    It's an unnecessary step IMO and I was a die hard briner as well as a die hard Steven Weber fan.