Brining Chicken

Mark_B_Good

Mark_B_Good

I love this recipe ...

johnmitchell

Looks fantastic 

BlueRidgeSmokers

Any more these days, I do an equilibrium brine, meaning I weigh the meat (and guestimate for bone weight; there's various numbers, but I use 60% of whole bird weight as the meat weight). Then I figure how much water it will take to submerge the piece(s), add that to the meat weight, and add 1% by weight of salt to the water. Ideal salt range for meat is 1-2% by weight, so the 1% addition of salt gets me to 1% or slightly above, leaving room for surface seasoning after brining.

This means the water starts out with "excess" salt, which soaks into the meat while brining. There's no way to over-brine this way; you just need to chill the pot with meat/brine until the salt level stops dropping in the liquid.

For small pieces like chicken wings, this takes ~4-6 hours. Larger/thicker pieces take longer, a whole bird I go overnight+. I got a salt-meter so I could get calibrated on the process. If in doubt, just wait longer, it won't over-brine or toughen-up.

No sugar is added, it doesn't soak in to the meat like salt does; if you want some sugar, you can sprinkle it on after brining is done, because that's as deep it goes.

Other than totally non-critical timing, this also means you don't need to rinse after brining, because the residual water left on the meat has exactly the right salt level, just pat it dry or shake it off so there's not a lot.

Mark_B_Good

One thing I did was ... I save the brine after I pulled the birds out and distributed between those two pans, spooning out the chunky bits of garlic and peppercorns to spread even. Then we chopped up vegetables, and put them in the trays, and positioned them under the birds.

Not only were the birds amazing ... but those veggies were SOOOO delicious!

Mark_B_Good

Gonna be doing this recipe tomorrow night.

My brine is:

- 2 quarts (4 pints or 8 cups) water,
- 1/3 cup kosher salt,
- 1/3 cup sugar,
- 1/3 cup poultry rub,
- 1/3 cup KEG seasoning,
- 1/4 cup honey,
- 2 tablespoons chopped garlic,
- 1 tablespoon whole peppercorns.

All went into a LARGE pot.

Brought to boil, then took off the stove, and added cold water to fill pot about half way ... I'd say I added about another 4 cups of cold water is my guess. You can add a couple of cups crushed ice instead of water, to help it cool down quicker.

Left to cool down ... then once cold, I dropped the birds (two) in, and filled with more water until the birds were submerged.

Brining for a little over 24h.

Will post pictures of the cook, once done.

nolaegghead

boiling the spices is a good idea, pulls out flavor like making tea

ThrasherIII

a very simple one tha i've used is 3 12 ounce beers (no Light beer) 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup kosher salt, and 4 1/2 cups of ice water, warm the beer up enough to disolve the salt and sugar in then add the water/ ice.  after it is cool put in large zip lock with chicken and soak for at least 3-4 hours. I usually start this after breakfast then by dinner time. pour out the brine and dry of the chicken. grill as you wish and season how you like. the chicken comes out moist and the skin is crispy.