How to achieve the best brining experience

[Food Network Fan]

How to achieve the best brining experience
The Virginian-Pilot, VA - 18 hours ago
Dunk a turkey in a vat of water. Add salt, sugar, maybe maple syrup or apple cider, peppercorns, allspice. It's called brining. Martha Stewart's recipe calls for a bottle of wine. For the Food Network's Alton Brown, only kosher salt and brown sugar will do. Let the bird soak overnight - more or less - in the refrigerator. Take it out on the big day, heat up the oven and roast as you normally would. Many celebrity cooks and food magazine gurus say that's the trick for a moist, flavorful turkey. Is it?p> We asked the real experts - home cooks - to give brining a try. Two readers, Kathy Ortiz of Chesapeake and Will Griffin of Virginia Beach, volunteered, and spent the last week or so defrosting, brining and roasting.

[Drunkpup]

You may notice that brining you may not get that extra crispy skin. There is a fix. Take the advice of those wonderful chaps that make such a good duck in Peking. Let the skin dry up a bit for 8-12 hours before you cook the bird.

I have a small extra fridge I use for Beer, Brining, and curing. Inside is a small computer fan and a plate of rice. After the turkey is brined, I plug up the holes with cling film and aluminium foil (making a cork with plastic around). Put it in the fridge on a rack over a drip try. Turn on the fan.

When I am ready to cook I take the bird out combine my herb and spice rub in oil. Oil up the turkey with this mixture and cook away, very hot 250C + for 1/2 hour, then brop back to 170C until inner temp is reached.

I have always had crispy skin (and not just on my head when the sun is out).

[Chefnot]

That's interesting...the fan idea. Curious...do you smoke any items?

We use a drink cooler and ice when we brine.

[Food Network Fan]

Great to hear everyone's tips.

[Drunkpup]

Originally Posted by Chefnot

That's interesting...the fan idea. Curious...do you smoke any items?

We use a drink cooler and ice when we brine.

Yes, I love smoking meat, some vegies and my favorite and newest kick is smoking oils. I throw a pan with some olive oil, grapeseed oil, or clarified butter. Then when I want a bit of smoke when I am cooking in the house I throw some of the oil on it. Tastes better and is surely more healthy then liquid smoke.

I forgot another tip that I wanted to share:

DO NOT USE VOLUME TO MEASURE DRY GOODS. I don't mean to yell but measuring salt by volume is just silly. Salt, and any dry good for that matter, varies in size, compaction and processing so much that any recipe can not be repeatable unless all conditions are perfect.

My basic brine is

Salt 2.5 oz. /quart or 70g/L
Brown sugar 1.5 oz/qt or 35g/L

To this I will add any imaginable combination of aromatics and spices.

If you haven't noticed I am very fond of the metric system for cooking. Much easier to scale recipes for sizes because I am not sure how much a .85 oz is but that problem is not present for metric.

[Food Network Fan]

Love your avatar Drunkpup.