Simple Brine

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LarryWolfe

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Here's a recipe I've been using ever since I first started smoking turkeys. I've tried other brines and in my opinion this is by far the best. I can't remember exactly where I got this recipe, but it works and is delicious. DON'T freak about the amount or type of salt used!

1 box of non-iodized table salt (approx 3 cups)
1 cup of sugar (white or brown work fine, or a combo of the two)
3 gallons of water

Mix salt and sugar with one gallon of hot water and stir until completely dissolved. Then add two gallons of cold water. Brine turkey or turkey breast overnight, (approx. 12 hours). Some recipes say to rinse the bird off, I don't. I just pat it dry with paper towels. Cook in the 250* range until the breast reads between 160-165* and the thigh reads 170*. Tent with foil and let cool before slicing. If you let it set in the fridge over night before slicing, it's even better.

* You can add any herbs or spices to the brine you want. I keep it plain and simple.
 
Brine recipe struck me as not enough sweet to offset the salt. If I was birthing this puppy would add two cups of sugar to the final tally. That get the ying and yang back into perspective. If you aint putting no flavorful spices into the water..there aint much sense in brining it..cuz that is the purpose of a brine which is to carry the flavor of the water into whutver you are brining. Betta have it ice cold when you add the bird too or it will really be too salty. One gallon of brine is plenty for one turkey or two chickens..or most likely two or three turkey breastes. Which most of that stuff comes already brined from the factory so it dont need brining to start with. My God..Lord God...is there no help for the widow's son?

bigwheel
 
bigwheel said:
Brine recipe struck me as not enough sweet to offset the salt. If I was birthing this puppy would add two cups of sugar to the final tally. That get the ying and yang back into perspective. If you aint putting no flavorful spices into the water..there aint much sense in brining it..cuz that is the purpose of a brine which is to carry the flavor of the water into whutver you are brining. Betta have it ice cold when you add the bird too or it will really be too salty. One gallon of brine is plenty for one turkey or two chickens..or most likely two or three turkey breastes. Which most of that stuff comes already brined from the factory so it dont need brining to start with. My God..Lord God...is there no help for the widow's son?

bigwheel

BW you're right, you can certainly add more sugar if you prefer, as well as herbs, spices, etc. This recipe is just a base and can be adjusted to suit your personal tastes.

Matilda, welcome to the forum. Take a minute and introduce yourself in the introduction page. Seems you have alot to offer to the forum! Looking forward to reading your posts!
 
Hey Matilda..thanks for the input. My standard (not so simple:) brine tends to look like this:

Bigwheel's Grand Prize Winning Chicken Brine

1 cup pickling/canning salt
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup mild molasses (Brer Rabbit is my favorite)
3/4 cup Kikkomann Soy Sauce
1/4 cup Lea n Perrins wooster sauce
2 T each: grandulated garlic, dry minced onywan, black peppa, dry
mustard, liquid shrimp and crab boil, bbq rub.
1/2 t. mixed eyetalian spices (oregano, basil, thyme, tarragon etc)
1 big or 2 small Bay Leaves

Dump all this into a one gallon glass jug and fill with hot tap water. Put on the lid and shake it up and let it set at room temp for several days. Giving it a shake whenever you think about it. Prior to use..get it ice cold. Put the bird(s) into the bottom of double bagged non-scented garbage bags..shake up the brine one last time and pour it over the top. Force out as much air as possible and tie a knot in top of the bags. Throw the bags into the ice box or ice chest with ice. Flop the bags around occasionally. Enough to do one turkey or two chickens. Try to let the turkey go 24 hrs...chickens go 8 to 12.

bigwheel
 
Tell ya I have been tweaking that brine for about 10 years. Has put a lot of money in the pocket. Course I has spent a lot to get it:) Recall vividly hitting 2nd place with it at 7 consecutive bbq cookoffs. Not quite sure why but had trouble bumping it to first less it was a fairly small cookoff. Must be a little something missing is all I can figger. Sounds like you be just the lady to tweak it up a notch:)

bigwheel


matilda said:
That sounds delicious, bigwheel. When do we eat? :D
 
Wow..that got to be the missing ingredient. Prob just give a little light whiff of Chanel #5 or sumthin:)

bigwheel
 
Well I aint familiar with all them furrin fish yall talking about..but I sure do admire the flavor of anchovies on my pizzer. In fact I will post yall an Eyetalian recipe which uses em too. It's called Pasta Putanesca. Yum yum. I got the best recipe for that stuff in the entire world. It come from a dearly departed lady friend of mine named Wendy Hufnagle..aka Agent ~W or sometimes just ~W. Well I was a friend of her's anyway. She was purty liberal and I'm slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun:) We usually got into a brawl on politics and religion and stuff. I was just joking around..and she wasn't come to find out.

bigwheel
 
Yes indeed. Brine is the way to go with poultry. I recently did some wings for the family and I didn't want to fuss with them, I just wanted to "git 'er done".

In a gallon Ziploc bag, I soaked the wings for an hour in a brine mix of 1/2-cup kosher salt, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/2 gallon of water. I then poured out the brine, and poured in some olive oil and coated the wings and added some hot sauce.

I placed the wings in the cooker at 300 F for thirty minutes and then basted them with the oil/sauce mix and then turned them over to cook another thirty minutes.


They were the best I have ever made, not by my opinion, but the folks who consumed them. This included a crisp skin, not rubbery like I usually do.

My favorite kind of cooking.... something you don't have to fuss with, just simple basic ingredients.
 
bigwheel said:
Well I aint familiar with all them furrin fish yall talking about..but I sure do admire the flavor of anchovies on my pizzer. In fact I will post yall an Eyetalian recipe which uses em too. It's called Pasta Putanesca. Yum yum. I got the best recipe for that stuff in the entire world. It come from a dearly departed lady friend of mine named Wendy Hufnagle..aka Agent ~W or sometimes just ~W. Well I was a friend of her's anyway. She was purty liberal and I'm slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun:) We usually got into a brawl on politics and religion and stuff. I was just joking around..and she wasn't come to find out.

bigwheel

Ok, here is a secret for you all: Put in ever so small a quantity of anchovy paste in your sauce, and it will peak up all the other flavors in the sauce, kind of like they way a little salt makes the sweet in ice cream more intense.
 
matilda said:
BchrisL said:
bigwheel said:
Well I aint familiar with all them furrin fish yall talking about..but I sure do admire the flavor of anchovies on my pizzer. In fact I will post yall an Eyetalian recipe which uses em too. It's called Pasta Putanesca. Yum yum. I got the best recipe for that stuff in the entire world. It come from a dearly departed lady friend of mine named Wendy Hufnagle..aka Agent ~W or sometimes just ~W. Well I was a friend of her's anyway. She was purty liberal and I'm slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun:) We usually got into a brawl on politics and religion and stuff. I was just joking around..and she wasn't come to find out.

bigwheel

Ok, here is a secret for you all: Put in ever so small a quantity of anchovy paste in your sauce, and it will peak up all the other flavors in the sauce, kind of like they way a little salt makes the sweet in ice cream more intense.

Wouldn't the point of that be that anchovie paste is inherently salty and therefore adds the needed salt? Or am I just getting/having a blonde moment?

I think is add a little more than than salt by itself, but that is just my opinion. :)
 
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