Brine Recipe

[TAAHTRUCKING]

Hello Everyone

Thanks for all the help on smoking a brisket. My next question is I seen a few subjects on Brine Recipes an what I gather so far is it"s used for Turkey. Is there any other meats to use it for?

Thanks
How Bout Them LongHorns

[BBQ101]

Brines are for poultry. People will inject pork butts and briskets :wink: . Search brines and Try Bob BQins and Bigwheels. Most brines start as a 1/2 cup kosher salt and a 1/2 cup sugar to a 1/2 gallon of water. Some cook there brines and cool them before they use them. I just mix it up 24 hours before I need it and stir it until its all mixed up. Some also use stock but I would cut down on the salt. :wink:

[TB]

Brines are for poultry. People will inject pork butts and briskets :wink: ...
True, but I wonder why?

[BBQ101]

:lol: I am not sure but it works. If you wanna brine a brisket I would think it would gray the meat. I have soaked pork buts and ribs in apple juice. I think the meat of a pork butt and a brisket would be to dense for the brine to work IMHO. :wink:

[Zilla]

I brined the last fresh ham I smoked and it worke fine. the brine made it through about 3/4 of the meatowards to bone in a 48 hr soak. Tastes great.

[bigwheel]

Well I aint sure anything with less than a cup of salt per gallon o liquid even be able to be called a briine. Salt water soak maybe. At any rate 1 cup per gallon is considered a weak brine in most circles. The old farmer method was to start with about 3 gallons of water and start adding the salt till it would float a raw egg. Now that is a real brine. Briskets can be brined very easily..but you can speed up the process by shooting it up with brine. Throw a little TQ in there with it and you come up with some stuff called corned beef...throw that on the pit and it turns itself into pastrami. Large cuts of pork work the same way..they just got different names.

bigwheel

[Zilla]

Now I heard that the egg thing was fer making pickles not fer brining meat. You got to add a crazy amount of salt to float an egg in a liquid. There was was quite a knock down drag em out brawl over on that BBQ-4-U forum around Thanksgiving on this subject. Every brine expert in the world was making an apperence there to chime in. :lol: That was a discussion with some cussin. :lol:

[bigwheel]

Well might work for pickles too..aint sure but dont know why it wouldnt. The egg floater brine make some major killer good corned beef..but as you say it be powaful salty but that problem is readily cured by simmering in a large pot of water. Swear it would make you chunk rocks at the storebought version of the same stuff. The recipe I originally used for the stuff called for Salt Peter as the cure and it stayed in the brine 10 days and wasnt pumped. Would venture to say I made in the tons over a period of years. Used to do em up 10 packers at a time for my little Eyetalian lady pal from New Yawk City who run a Januine Texas BBQ and New Yawk Deli sub shoppe down here. She cooked the bbq on some kind of pressure cooking smoker. It was mighty nasty. Now she had the best corned beef sandwiches in the DFW area. She made the best meatballs I ever ate in my life. I got her recipe :wink:

bigwheel

[TexLaw]

Brines are good for poultry, pork, and shrimp. I don't use a brine for beef, unless I'm making corned beef or pastrami. If you brine a hunk of beef, you'll wind up with something like corned beef or pastrami, no matter what else you do with it, so that better be what you're shooting for.


TL

[bigwheel]

Dittos on that Tex. All the cure does is make it stay pink I think.

bigwheel

[droller]

I've been told it's the saltpeter that keeps the meat from turning gray.

[Grumpy Gator]

Ya ain't lived 'til ya brined a nice thick pork chop... now them's good eats!

[bigwheel]

Yeppers..I will gladly second the motion. TQ or Modern Cure..or Insta Cure..or Prauge Powder will do the same thing..and it aint quite as dangerous as salt peter. Believe Joe Ames say it aint allowed for use in things destined for human consumption nowadays. Used to could buy it at the drug store. It also rumored to take the lead from the pencils of them who imbide on it regular. Maybe that just an old military boot camp urban myth of some type.

bigwheel


I've been told it's the saltpeter that keeps the meat from turning gray.

[droller]

Limp, also?

[Steve-O]

Brine for Poulty only. Brine is a salt water mixture. 1Q water, 1/4 cup sea salt, 1/4 c raw sugar. You can substitute another liquid for the water, but reduce the salt or sugar if the liquid contains these. You can add flavoring to the liquid too. Any spice or tea.

All other meats I will marinade or slather and let rest overnight. This is a lot like Brining, but marinades, rubs, and slathers are not "brines".

[david brace]

I'm looking forward to trying bigwheel's brine recipe on a turkey. Just gotta wait for this weather to turn a little warm...in about 3 months :wink:

DB