Brine

maklabouhlel · 19 Jan 2019 at 21:17

Hello,

When you a make a brine for chicken, does the solution have to be a fixed concentration?

ganesh · 20 Jan 2019 at 09:37

It depends on how long you have to brine, for a whole chicken I’ll normally put it in a 5% solution overnight for 10-12 hours. But if I don’t have the time then I’ll use a 10% solution for 6 hours. And so on and so forth.

Brian The Snail · 20 Jan 2019 at 10:59

I dry brined my Christmas turkey following this here. I added some orange zest too. It came out so well I'm going to do the same when I have a chicken. I'm also considering doing it to steak too.

The only downside is it takes time, the longer the better.

maklabouhlel · 20 Jan 2019 at 13:32

ganesh said:
It depends on how long you have to brine, for a whole chicken I’ll normally put it in a 5% solution overnight for 10-12 hours. But if I don’t have the time then I’ll use a 10% solution for 6 hours. And so on and so forth.

What's the salt to water ratio for 5%?

ganesh · 20 Jan 2019 at 14:31

maklabouhlel said:
What's the salt to water ratio for 5%?

It’s 5%, so for 2 litres of water you add 5% of that value in salt, 100g.

maklabouhlel · 20 Jan 2019 at 18:03

ganesh said:
It’s 5%, so for 2 litres of water you add 5% of that value in salt, 100g.

That's great, thanks.

the_r_sole · 21 Jan 2019 at 10:52

didn't realise folk took it seriously enough to use measures! I usually just fire in salt/soy until I reckon it's about salty enough!!

ganesh · 21 Jan 2019 at 13:42

the_r_sole said:
didn't realise folk took it seriously enough to use measures! I usually just fire in salt/soy until I reckon it's about salty enough!!

It’s fairly sensible to know quantities with brining, as over brined meat is not pleasant.

the_r_sole · 21 Jan 2019 at 21:35

ganesh said:
It’s fairly sensible to know quantities with brining, as over brined meat is not pleasant.

amazingly I haven't had it yet! usually because the vessel for brining varies so much I have no idea the volume of water!