The Food Lab: Turkey Brining Basics
It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post.
[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
If my mom's roasting skills are representative of the nation's, then I'll assume we've all experienced dry turkey. I'm not talking the kind that frays around the edges as soon as a carving knife comes close to it or that instantly turns to sawdust when it hits your tongue—I'm talking the kind that is just good enough that you can still smile and say nice things during dinner, but just bad enough that you wonder why the pilgrims couldn't have eaten prime rib during that first fall.
The problem, as we all know, is with overcooking. So first, a quick look at what happens to turkey (and other meats) as it cooks.
- Under 120°F (48.9°C): The meat is still considered raw. Muscle cells are bundled up and aligned in long, straight cable-like fibrils wrapped in a sheath of elastic connective tissues, which is what gives meat it's "grain."
- At 120°F: The protein myosin, begins to coagulate, forcing some liquid out of the muscle cells, which then collects within the protein sheath.
- At 140°F (60°C): The remaining proteins within the muscle cells coagulate, forcing all of the liquid out of the cells, and into the protein sheath. The coagulated proteins turn the meat firm and opaque.
- At 150°F (65.6 °C): The proteins in the sheath itself (mainly collagen) rapidly coagulate and contract. Like squeezing a tube of toothpaste, all the water what was forced out of the cells and has collected within the sheath, is now squeezed out of the meat completely. Congratulations, your turkey is overcooked.
Thanks to all those who pointed out that I should include temperature conversions in the future
Although the government will have you believe that 165°F is the minimum temperature to cook your turkey to, clearly you need your turkey to be within the 140 to 150°F range to ensure juiciness.
Below this range, and the moisture is still locked within the muscle cells. This is why raw meat tastes slippery instead of juicy—your teeth aren't sharp enough to liberate the moisture from inside the cells. Above this range, and the liquid has already gone and found a new home. But even with an accurate thermometer, you run into a problem. It may seem obvious to say it, but roasting cooks meats from the outside in. So at normal roasting temperatures—say 300°F—by the time the center of the bird is at 145°F, the exterior layers of your bird will be much higher, closer to 180 or 190°F. the result is slices that are perfectly moist and tender in the center, but overcooked and dry around the edges.
Enter brining, the process in which a lean cut of meat (like turkey, chicken breast, or pork) is soaked in a salt water solution to help it retain moisture during cooking. Sure, sure—this is nothing new. The Scandinavians and Chinese have been extolling the virtues of brining for millennia, and Cook's Illustrated has for at least a decade. But the thing that is odd to me is that people can't seem to agree on how it works—even the experts.
Brining Basics
Let's start with what it actually accomplishes.
Spoiler Alert: One of these breasts is not like that other. In a few moments, I'm going to throw all three into a 300°F oven, roast them until they are 145°F in the very center, then quickly sear them in a hot skillet until their skin is a beautifully crisp, burnished golden brown. Only one of them will emerge fully tender and moist. The other two will end up dry and stringy around the edges.
For this experiment, I started with three nearly identical fresh, non-kosher (kosher breasts come pre-salted), non-enhanced (turkeys that come injected with a saline solution, I.E. Butterball's and Jenny-O's) turkey breasts (I admit, two were right breasts, and one was left).
One of them I left totally untreated before roasting. The second, I soaked overnight in a 6% solution of salt water (about 1/2 a cup of kosher salt, or 1/4 cup of table salt per quart of water). The third breast was a control that was soaked in pure water, just to ensure that it's actually the salt in the solution that is affecting the quality of the meat.
In order to gauge moisture loss, I weighed each breast at all stages of the process—straight from the butcher, just before roasting, just after emerging from the oven, and just before slicing, making sure to subtract the weight of the fat deposited in the roasting pan from each breast to compensate for any differences in fat loss.
Here's what happened:
The blue line represents the untreated turkey breast, which ends up losing around 24% of its weight in moisture-loss during cooking. The brined turkey, on the other hand, lost only about 15% of its weight, while the water-soaked turkey lost around 20%. Clearly, brining works, and it's specifically the salt in the soak that helps the turkey retain moisture while its cooking.
And the best part? Since a brine works from the outside in, it affects precisely those areas of the turkey breast that are most prone to drying out—the exterior layers.
Let me demonstrate:
This is a macro shot of two slices taken off of the roasted, unbrined turkey breast. Now, don't get me wrong—if someone served this to me at a Thanksgiving meal, I'd be more than happy to eat it. In fact, the very center of the slice is absolutely perfect. But as you can clearly see, it's the last half-centimeter around the edge that starts to dry out.
Now, take a look at this:
These are two slices taken from the brined turkey breast. Even the outermost layers, which rose to temperatures well in excess of 150°F, are still moist and juicy, forming perfectly smooth, even slices.*
*I apologize for the slight blurriness of the focus on the front of the slices—this is a photographer error, and not a poorly executed airbrushing job.
How it Works
So the salt solution is somehow helping the turkey retain more moisture as it cooks. But how?
One common explanation is that it is pure osmosis, the movement of water across a semi-permeable membrane. Cell walls are designed to allow water and small molecules to move in and out of them freely, while preventing larger molecules from entering or leaving—this is how it gets the raw materials it needs to live without losing any of its "guts."
This movement of water and small soluble compounds is controlled by osmotic pressure. Essentially, whenever there is an imbalance of the concentration of solutes across two sides of a permeable membrane, water will pass through the membrane until the concentration is equalized.
So how does this explain brining? Well, unfortunately, it doesn't, and we can prove this without even knowing the concentration of solutes inside the cells to begin with. Let's look at three possible scenarios.
- Scenario 1: There is a higher concentration of solutes within the cells.
In this case, in order to equalize the concentration, water should flow from the brine into the cells. Seems to make sense—except that as we've already seen, soaking in pure water is less effective than soaking in salt water (see graph above). If osmotic pressure was the only thing bringing water into the meat, then a soak in pure water (which creates a higher differential in solute concentration between the interior and exterior of the cells) should force more water into the cells than a soak in salt water.
- Scenario 2: There is an equal concentration of solutes within the cells.
In this case, osmosis does not even enter into it. There may be an exchange of solutes as sodium ions change places with small molecules inside the cells through diffusion, but this should have no effect on the amount of water taken up by the meat
- Scenario 3: There is a lower concentration of solutes within the cells.
In this case, the laws of osmosis state that water would migrate from within the cells to the outside. Your turkey meat should actually dry-out even more if your salt solution is too concentrated.
In a bid to demonstrate that osmosis is not the key factor in brining, I conducted an experiment based on scenario three: I brined a turkey breast in a fully saturated salt water solution (for example, a solution with as much salt as I could possibly dissolve in it)—around 35% salt by weight—and compared it to a turkey breast in a 6% brine solution.
While the fully-saturated-brined turkey on the left had outer layers that were inedibly salty (remember—diffusion), both turkeys lost about the same amount of weight during cooking, indicating that rather than effecting osmosis, the salt must be doing something entirely different.*
The Answer
Turns out that the real answer has to do with the shape of proteins. In their natural state, the muscle cells are tightly bound within their protein sheaths—this doesn't leave much room for excess water to collect in the meat.
But as anyone who has ever made sausages or cured meats knows, salt has a powerful effect on muscles. A 6% solution of salt will effectively denature (read: unravel) the proteins that make up the sheath around the muscle bundles. In this loosened, denatured state, you can now fit more water into those muscles than in their natural state. Even better, the denatured proteins in the sheaths contract far less as they cook, therefore squeezing out much less moisture.
Now, given that most of you food nerds have probably been brining for years, is knowing all this really going to make your turkey taste better this Thanksgiving?
Nope. But at least it gives you something to talk to your relatives about besides gluten formation in laminate pastry pie crusts.
*Disclaimer: I know I'm going to eventually get beat up in the comments section for not mentioning this, so I will say now that yes, osmosis does actually enter into the equation in a minor way: as salt diffuses into the actual muscle cells, they break down some of the cells internal structure, releasing solutes into it. Provided your brine concentration is low enough, this can create a difference in osmotic pressure that will cause some water to actually migrate into the cells themselves instead of just into the protein sheaths surrounding them.
That said, once the turkey is cooked and the liquid is squeezed out from within the cells, it is the moisture trapped in the protein sheaths that gives the sensation of juiciness—not the liquid that was inside the cells before it was even cooked, as is clearly demonstrated by the last experiment using a fully-saturated brine solution.
About the author: After graduating from MIT, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt spent many years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor in Boston. He now lives in New York with his wife, where he runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and co-writes the blog GoodEater.org.
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49 Comments:
Thank you for pointing out the minimal role that osmosis actually has in this, and describing the actual workings of osmosis correctly - something nearly everyone on television has screwed up (even Alton Brown got it wrong on his brined turkey episode, I think... though it's been a while).
That said, I've done his brine for every turkey I've cooked in the last 5 or 6 years... and it's been awesome.
stratusgd at 9:59AM on 11/06/09
Kenji, you are awesome.
It only this article was out last year... we (a bunch of life scientists decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner together) had a heated discussion about brining turkey.
hmw0029 at 10:34AM on 11/06/09
this column is amazing.
mr guy at 10:41AM on 11/06/09
I have a couple of questions about how your findings apply to an actual Thanksgiving turkey, since most of us will not be eating just the breast :)
1. How does brining affect the skin of the bird? I notice that you sear the breast to crisp the skin. That's not really possible with a whole bird, so what would you recommend in that case?
2. Certainly a breast is at its juiciest at 140-150F, but, if the breast part on a whole bird is at 145F, then the thigh is almost certainly still a little undercooked, right? (That's true for a chicken, at any rate.) How would you get around this? In school, we'd sometimes remove the cooked chicken breast and return the rest of the bird to cook for a little longer, but this doesn't seem practical with a whole turkey.
Thanks!
Michele Humes at 10:57AM on 11/06/09
Well, you have a lot of half science here, and have ignored some basic issues. Salt is a critical issue in brining, but Osmosis is equally important to brining. If your brine is too high in salt and sugars, you can very effectively draw the moisture out of the meat. 5-6 % salt solution is ideal for short brining times. Also, in using straight water, the salt naturally occurring in the meat is leached out of the surface, removing something essential to increased yields. Water is absorbed, but not bound. Time is important with static brining as Osmosis is an issue. As the salt is absorbed, the solution within the meat will try to equalize the pressure on the exterior and interior solutions. If you brine for several days, your 6% salt solution may equalize into 3%-5% salt in the meat if the amount absorbed by the meat does not substantially decrease the strength of the exterior solution. So, if the brining is done for longer than overnight, salt concentrations should be reduced. I have seen people wet curing/ brining pork and turkey in saturated salt solutions, and have had no salt absorbed, while the moisture levels of the raw meat dropped so far that it became dehydrated.
6% salt does not denature protein, it solubilizes the myosin. It allows it to stretch and open up to hold water and if tumbled, bind more tightly to other proteins forming a batter. Cooking denatures protein, removing its water binding capacity. Other additives enhance the water binding.
Now to further explain some of the reasons that your brined prepared turkeys contain certain ingredients, the most common ingredient beyond salt is sodium Phosphate in one of several forms. This is added because it greatly opens the protein structure to allow it to absorb more water. It also binds the water in as the meat cooks, and reduces the amount of physical shrinkage. As an example, bacon cure with sodium phosphates shrinks in size about 40% less than salt brined bacon.
Meat guy at 11:03AM on 11/06/09
@Michele Humes
Yes - cooking a turkey whole is always a problem because of the difference in cooking between the breasts and the legs. I decided for myself a couple of years ago that the benefits of having a whole turkey arrive at the table are far outweighed by the benefits of cooking the breasts and legs separately. Taste trumps appearance in my book!
I'll be working up a recipe for turkey that'll appear in this column in 2 weeks (in time for Thanksgiving!) that'll address these very issues.
For now, I've found that to get tender meat and crisp skin, the best way is a two-stage cooking process. Once at low temperature (around 200-250, or even lower) until the turkey is cooked through, followed by a rest at room temp for at least half an hour, and then finishing it in a really hot oven (around 500) just to crisp up the skin.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 11:03AM on 11/06/09
@meat guy
yep - I should have pointed out that this information pertains only to short term (IE in the range of an hour to overnight) brining. As the test I did using a saturated salt solution shows, the effects that the salt has on the protein structure of the meat is much more important that the effects of osmosis, but you are right that if I had left that turkey breast in there for several days, it would have eventually lost enough moisture that it would affect the moisture level in the cooked product.
Thanks for the clarification re: denaturing vs. dissolving of myosin, and for the info about enhanced turkeys and sodium phosphate! No wonder butterballs are so moist. I actually find it really offputting (beyond the fact that those turkeys are raised in horrid conditions). The meat is almost spongelike because of the amount of moisture in it.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 11:12AM on 11/06/09
Thanks, Kenji! Norman Rockwell is rolling in his grave a little, but hey :)
I have only ever made one Thanksgiving turkey (am a recent arrival to US) and I basically pretended I was cooking a very large version of Thomas Keller's "poulet roti a ma facon." So I salted my unbrined, unstuffed bird like crazy--with coarse salt--and put it in a roaring hot (450) oven for 2 hours. Didn't touch it or baste it during that time. Fast and moist, but, like I say, I don't have a lot to compare it to.
Which is all to say that if you ever feel like doing a exhaustive, and surely exhausting, comparison of methods, I would be very eager to see how that method stands up. I won't hold it against you if you don't, though.
Michele Humes at 11:13AM on 11/06/09
I am a huge fan of brining. Especially poultry.
We've also experimented with how the bird is positioned while cooking and have found great differences on both the grill and the oven.
I now roast the turkey on a V-shaped roasting rack, breast side down.
This allows the breasts to retain moisture much better than the traditional breast up position.
I don't care if my bird looks pretty. It get's carved in the kitchen before serving anyway. Just want a moist, tasty final product and both brining and roasting breast down help.
CJ McD at 11:22AM on 11/06/09
Brilliant! This will be my first year hosting Thanksgiving, and I've been wondering about brining. Thank you!
Coincidentally, I was just talking about gluten formation the other day...
yayfood at 11:37AM on 11/06/09
So how do you do it exactly? In some very large vessel in your fridge? You wouldn't leave the turkey sitting out at room temperature all night, right?
Trilby at 12:00PM on 11/06/09
Actually Butterballs are juicy and with that texture is not due to brine. Butterball uses an injection system to place margarine into the breast of the raw bird, so it is basically like making a larded roast. Fatty, buttery tasting. Fat is a greater contributor to lasting juiciness than water. Think of how tender and juicy a slow cooked fatty chuck roast is, the moisture is cooked out but the fat makes it juicy. Melt some butter and inject that into the breast if you really want juiciness. Most other processors use a salt brine containing flavorings and phosphates to enhance moisture retention. Phosphates will actually make the product moister at the far safer fully cooked range of 160F internal, though the meat may stay pink.
Meat guy at 12:25PM on 11/06/09
gah, I meant to type "If" not It. being a foreigner doesn't help making grammatical errors but I can't even type...
I like it when Meat guy reveals meat industry's dirty secrets.
hmw0029 at 12:41PM on 11/06/09
@Trilby
you can do it in a large vessel in the fridge, or in a double layer of oven bags or garbage bags (set them inside a roasting pan to catch any leaks).
You can also brine your turkeys in a cooler out of the fridge. Just add enough ice packs to keep it cool through the night. Ice packs work better than ice cubes because they won't dilute the brine as they melt.
@meat guy
I think some manufacturers do inject oil into the breasts (I've never heard of hydrogenated oil or margarine though), but butterballs don't. It's just a brine:
These are the ingredients from their website:
Ingredients: Turkey, Water, Salt, Modified Food Starch, Sodium Phosphates, Natural Flavorings.
As for a cooked chuck roast, I think it's more than just the fat - it's the conversion of the collagen in its copious connective tissue into gelatin that keeps it well-lubricated in your mouth. That conversion takes temperatures of at least 160 degrees, and plenty of time to take place. I think the statement that "fat makes things juicy" is a pretty common misconception, though I haven't yet done any rigorous tests to prove it. But I've certainly eaten larded meats that are dry, and well marbled steaks that are dry, and fatty salmon that is dry. If something is overcooked, all the fat in the world won't save it - unless, like a chuck roast or a pork butt or a short rib, there is plenty of connective tissue to make gelatin and lubricate the dried-out muscle.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 12:48PM on 11/06/09
Awesome post. The nerd in me loves learning about the science behind what makes food taste "good."
Can you comment on using liquids besides water and other additions such as herbs to the brine. I'm not a brine expert, but from my own cooking I really haven't noticed much difference between a simple brine and one that includes a bunch of additions.
Burger365 at 2:50PM on 11/06/09
@Burger365
You're right. Adding flavorings to your brine has a pretty minimal effect on the flavor of the meat. That's because the meat has a higher affinity for the sodium ions than it does for most common flavor compounds. When you put your meat in the brine, salt will selectively migrate into the meat, which basically means that there is less room for the other flavorings.
If you want to maximize marinating/brining, you should do two separate soaks. First, marinate your meat in a salt-free flavorful marinade. After that, brine it as usual. The flavor will come out much more distinctly.
Also, bear in mind that unless they are in solution, flavors won't enter the meat. So adding whole herbs to a marinade will have minimal effect unless you first bruise them, chop them, or otherwise rupture their cell structure so that they release flavor into the liquid.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:58PM on 11/06/09
Perhaps they have changed since I worked for them. Nothing was better than their buttery greasiness. I worked for Their parent company in R&D in the 70's and 80's and we had " Fang" our two needle injector designed to baste the whole birds with margarine. I forget that Butterball is now a company and not just a single product anymore, i think they have many product levels. Almost every major turkey processor uses a basting blend that is injected into the breast. usually it is a salt phosphate brine. It may be flavored with spice extractives, onion flavorings, broth, or a little hydrolyzed vegetable protein or autolyzed yeast extract to enhance the broth flavor.
There are no dirty secrets in meat processing. We are required to label EVERYTHING we put into a meat product. The real problem is consumers don't understand the labels and why the ingredients are there. To be USDA inspected means the USDA has to approve our processing plan and the labeling and food safety plans before we can produce a product. We have inspectors in plants verifying what we do after the USDA approves the product. That is one of the reasons you see meat recalls, required testing and record verification finds problems and hopefully recalls occur before anyone gets hurt.
Meat guy at 3:08PM on 11/06/09
@meat guy
wow - that's interesting to know re: butterballs . I guess the name used to make sense!
I'm working on a recipe for a turkey burger right now, and adding hydrolyzed veg protein and yeast extract are definitely on my list of tests. It's amazine what a difference a little yeast extract can make in the meatiness of your finished dish. It works great in stews and sauces as well (you can buy it in the international aisle - Vegemite or Marmite)
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 3:12PM on 11/06/09
There is a "dry" brining technique I've seen applied to chicken. I don't know if anyone has done it for turkey - you separate the skin and put kosher salt directly on the chicken flesh and let it sit overnight in the fridge. Seems like it would work for turkey.
oscarb at 3:14PM on 11/06/09
@oscarb The LA Times did a "Great Turkey Smackdown" a few years back and the dry "brining" technique emereged as the winner.
http://www.latimes.com/theguide/holiday-guide/food/la-fo-turkeycontest,0,3586629.story
Burger365 at 3:23PM on 11/06/09
@butterball
so, does that mean one could inject olive oil, butter, or better yet, bacon grease, into turkey breasts to make a roasted turkey with juicy white meat? how would that work??
hmw0029 at 5:50PM on 11/06/09
@hmw0029
I've never tried it with turkey, but I've tried injecting a chicken with melted butter in the past. I wasn't a big fan. It doesn't help keep the meat juicy - if you take the meat beyond 150 degrees, it dries out no matter what, so what you end up with is dry meat surrounded by butter. It still has that awful chalky texture in your mouth. It also just makes the bird taste like butter, instead of like a bird. It's kind of like grinding butter into your hamburgers. It adds some flavor and some fat, but in the end, it becomes a weaker expression of a burger.
For that reason, I'm actually even personally opposed to brining turkey in general - it ends up juicier, but you have more diluted turkey flavor. But to each their own - most people who have tried brined turkey swear by it.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 6:02PM on 11/06/09
good to know! thanks!
hmw0029 at 6:32PM on 11/06/09
I always brine my birds - and start them upside down in a very hot oven. The result is spectacularly juicy birds that have prompted guests to remark, "This doesn't even need gravy!"
(who needs gravy?? I always thought it more of a passionate desire)
finewinendine at 7:23PM on 11/06/09
P.S. Another great job Kenji - someone needs to donate some lab equipment (moisture analyzers, pH meters, etc) to your culinary-educational cause!
finewinendine at 7:24PM on 11/06/09
I'm wondering if you know how much actual salt the brining technique adds to the bird; I've got relatives who never salt their food and I'm curious if I can argue that not that much salt ends up in the bird.
If herbs etc don't end up in the meat via the brine, how about sugar?
I'm trying to work on a really satisfying vegetarian burger - are you saying that marmite might help there too?
lemonfair at 4:06AM on 11/07/09
Am also curious about the plastic garbage bag for brining. really? I didn't know it was ever okay to use garbage bags for food, and some actually have a petroleum smell. I know various non-food containers get used in large kitchens (trash cans, for example). I'd love it it you'd explore this topic more.
lemonfair at 9:08AM on 11/07/09
@J. Kenji Lopez-Alt ......They're probably a few different Butterball Turkey products out there.For example; natural butterballs versus "self basting" butterballs.I've cut quite a few butterball turkeys in half on a band saw at work,and they certainly do have either a margarine solution or what I think looks like butter flavor crisco all in the middle of the turkey.Kinda looks gross.
onepercent99 at 6:12PM on 11/07/09
I think a reference to On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee would have been nice... I am a follower of your writing and articles but some of this is almost verbatim to what is in the book.
inferno at 1:10AM on 11/08/09
You need to take a curtain call after this piece and everyone interested in successfully preparing turkey this T-Giving needs to print it. Thanks so much for the research, the "hows and whys" and for ensuring that there are a couple fewer crappy turkeys served this year. I've been brining for years and I wouldn't BEGIN to explain WHY it works. All I know is that I'm a dark meat eater and I can actually enjoy the white meat of a properly brined turkey. /end gushing over a really well-written piece!
therealchiffonade at 7:47AM on 11/08/09
I really love this column. My family has been brining turkey for years, but it's great to understand all of the scientific factors that go into the process. Nice work!
poke87 at 6:44PM on 11/08/09
@lemonfair
without the proper (read: expensive) lab equipment that finewinedine was talking about, it's tough to gauge the actual intake of salt. But the finished bird certainly tastes much saltier than an unbrined bird. I would guess that for at least the outer layers of the turkey, the salt content is pretty close to, or a little less than what you have in the brine (because there are other dissolved solids in the turkey). Maybe 4-5% for the first half centimeter of meat or so would be my guess. But that's all it is - a guess, so take it with a grain of salt (or a drop of brine).
For plastic garbage bags, eek - I should know this, huh? I guess I can't really answer either of your questions. But I think you're right - to be safe, you should probably use oven bags, which are specifically designed to be food safe.
Marmitmight work in a veggie burger. I haven't explored them too thoroughly yet, but in my mind, I'd like a veggie burger to taste of vegetables, and not try to imitate meat. That said, some marmite may well give it a slightly more savory flavor to stand up to the normal accompaniments that go with a burger. It's definitely worth a shot.
Kenji
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 6:54PM on 11/08/09
I've brined turkeys in clean plastic garbage bags for years and never had a problem. I've used this Maple Brine recipe by "Mean Chef" a "virtual" friend from an old discussion haunt of mine. He has an apple brine which is also delicious, but I favor the maple.
I use the Alton Brown method of roasting (but not his brine recipe). I like the burnished skin and juiciness of the bird. He roasts till it's 161 in the breast. I use a probe thermometer for this and HIGHLY RECOMMEND them - definitely worth the small investment. I use my probe therm for any and all roasted meat - and I've even used it to make jam. No guesswork = hells yeah.
LBNL,I have used my brined bird drippings to make gravy. I do NOT salt the gravy at all until after it is complete (with the brined drippings). 9 out of 9.5 times I do not need to add any salt and it's not overly salty.
therealchiffonade at 7:34PM on 11/08/09
@J. Kenji - thanks for responding.
@therealchiffonade: I don't suppose any of us would notice a "problem" with brining in garbage bags. This issue is the amount of BPH or other chemicals that are permissible to leach from non-food safe bags - and considering the growing concern about even the plastics that are deemed food safe, that's an issue of real import.
lemonfair at 8:35AM on 11/09/09
I took a 'turkey production' workshop with Novella Carpenter last weekend. She said it wasn't a good idea to brine heritage turkeys as that would bring out a gamey flavor. Anyone experienced that?
chascates at 3:43PM on 11/09/09
Kenji, if you are opposed to brining: How do you prepare your turkey?
twolefthands at 3:09AM on 11/10/09
@twolefthands
Wait until next friday!
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 3:13AM on 11/10/09
Check out the following website for an alternate salting method which is more suitable for smaller cuts of meat rather than for a 25 lb. turkey...
http://steamykitchen.com/163-how-to-turn-cheap-choice-steaks-into-gucci-prime-steaks.html
Some great chefs still believe in massive salting and rinsing as opposed to brining, even for large cuts of meat. But for steak and chicken breast in particular, I've noticed a very apparent increase in flavor. The salt initially draws the water out of the meat and then 30-40 minutes later, it sucks the salty liquid into the center. By rinsing off the exterior, you are ensuring that you won't be eating 90% of the salt. The meat is perfectly seasoned after this, no more salt is needed.
You're right about the importance of internal temperature. 140-145 is perfect for poultry. Pork and beef can be served slightly at less temps. Do yourself a favor... throw out those "pop-up" thermometers that come with your turkey. They are the main reason the majority of home cooks have dry turkey on Thanksgiving since the seal that breaks to signal cooking is complete only does so at 180 F+ degrees. The government is playing it about 15 degrees safer than their 165 F recommendation, even though 140-145 is perfectly safe.
ChefR0bert at 11:57AM on 11/10/09
So I deep fry my turkey's and I've never bothered brining them before as they tend to come out pretty moist as it is. I'm definitely not past trying it to make a good thing better but my concern is if this would have any impact to how a turkey fries.
Anyone tried it before?
Jim O at 2:47PM on 11/10/09
Interesting... I love this tutorial. That meat looks amazingly tender. e cigarette
johnkilmy at 5:10PM on 11/10/09
@Jim O
I actually did one like that today. I did a full breast with skin on, brined for about 8 hours. I marinated it (injected) with a sweet and hot marinade (maple syrup, garlic, cayenne pepper and a few other things) then cooked it at 275-300 degrees (I find cooking hotter than that burns the skin, and I love the skin.) for about 5 mins per pound (also checked internal temp for 145 degrees). It was amazing.
GrillMeister at 11:52PM on 11/12/09
By cooking at 275-300, I mean cooking in a deep fryer with peanut oil.
GrillMeister at 11:57PM on 11/12/09
Does this type of brining technique give you texture like smoked turkey breast? Like the kind you get with prepackage/sliced turkey breast? There is something to be said about naturally moist Turkey...
mojoseoul at 12:02AM on 11/16/09
I've never experienced a texture issue so radical as the one you describe - to have fresh turkey resemble "deli" turkey. The texture is plump and juicy and exactly like a regular turkey breast except the moisture is not cooked out of it. If you'd like to try brining, grab a supermarket chicken and have a go at it before the big day.
therealchiffonade at 5:42AM on 11/16/09
You know, I have done the same as Mr Brown. However when I make my gravy I degrease some of the juice from the roasting pan and pour it into the "Dressing" Pan this gives me the flavor that I crave minus the fat. Try it you will like it!
Larry Lansky at 2:46PM on 11/16/09
I've brined and fried and the bird was great. Recently I've brined but added a little herb stock That is bay lea,f rosemary, basil, celery, onion and garlic simmered for 20 minutes then cooked and added to the brine along with half a cup of sugar. I brine over night in a big stock pot on the back porch when the nighttime temperature is in the high 30's or in a cooler if it is warmer (I replace some of the water with ice. It is melted but still cold by morning).
I cook the bird breast side down on a V rack with no stuffing (except an oinion and a celery stalk and maybe an apple) 450 degrees for 15 minutes and then down to 330 degrees. I use a convection oven . I turn the bird onto it's back (carefully) for the last 20 minutes to brown the breast skin.
The result is crispy skin all over, moist tender meat and because the exposed back cooks more quickly than the breast which is on the bottom, the white and dark meat are both cooked perfectly
gashrink1 at 8:03PM on 11/16/09
This is not good. Nearly every turkey I've had in the past 10 years (unless I cooked it myself) is waaaaay too salty. This cannot make that trend better. I "brine" my turkey in the same thing I baste it in: a knarley mix of bacon grease (rubbed lovingly inside/outside/forced into every crevace) and orange juice. No extra salt added. Baste every 30 minutes or so while cooking. Turkey comes out juicy, the skin is crunchy and tangy and perfect (according to my friends who like the skin best - not me) and the stuffing even soaks up some of the flavor. And those of us who have not been inured to the excess salt of a junk food diet can eat it without soaking it in fresh water first. Of course, my vegan wife is not so thrilled, so I ask my friends to store up bacon fat for me - no bacon frying is one of the compromises (but not without benefit - she makes the best curries you could ask for).
drufusd at 8:56PM on 11/16/09
Thank you so much for explaining in detail the process of brining. I brined my Thanksgiving turkey for the first time last year and had a great result- a flavorful juicy turkey!
Lady_B at 6:04PM on 11/21/09
hey kenji, in your "how it works" section, second paragraph, you mention "cell walls." cell walls don't exist in turkeys, they have cell membranes...which you mentioned later on anyway.
neeki at 7:05PM on 11/21/09