brining my bird [General]

2007 Dec 24
Ever since we have kids we do xmas meal on boxing day and just eat buffet-style on xmas day. This year I am brining my bird.

- 8 litres water
- 2 cups local honey
- 3 cups non-iodized salt (e.g. kosher or pickling)
- 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
- 8 or 10 sprigs of rosemary

bird is not that big - just shy of 6 kg. I have a 1.5L mason jar of water with lid on it on top of the bird to hold it all under the brine.

the wife bought it - i would have personally picked up the biggest one :-)

It's been in a white food grade rona warehouse bucket on the side porch since it was +5C yesterday. But even at -7C last night there is enough brine to keep it from freezing.

So by tomorrow it will be brined 48 hours!

Mmmmmm ...

This is only my 2nd brined bird. The first one I deep fried and it made a huge difference in the final product vs other birds i've fried. This will be my first oven-roasted brined bird. An old friend of mine tells me his wife has been doing this for a few years now and it's hands-down the best poultry he's ever had, so I look forward to tomorrow!

Will try to get a few snapshots for this thread ... also of the lobster we have for the traditional McKay Xmas Eve lobster supper! Cheap lobster at Sobey's $8.99 per lb.

2007 Dec 24
Nice, zymurgist! We usually do a big seafood thing on Xmas Eve too. Often crab, but this year we're sticking to shrimp to ways and some scallops.

Wifey wants to know what eating "buffet-style on xmas day" means... Care to elaborate? :)

2007 Dec 24
We just do a spread of breads, pitas, dips, pickles, cheeses, veggies and other finger-foods. Leaves the whole day to share with the boys without worrying about preparing a big bunch of food - that comes on boxing day.

2007 Dec 26
Just baking it now.

And I'm such a cheapskate I just went out and bought another bird to brine so I don't waste all that brine :-0 I boiled it first of course for about 20 minutes then put it right into a food-grade bucket overnight on the side porch.

Now I have the 1st bird cooking and the 2nd one brining. When it's done in a few days I'll toss it into the deep freeze - maybe disect it first with my poultry shears so as to be able to properly vacuum seal it.

I may have to dig a nice big ham or roast from the deep freeze as well - something from a local farmer. I'll brine that bad-boy then return it. Yeah, I know all the hoop-la about refreezing food but as long as you do it wisely it's safe. e.g. Having the meat at near-freezing the whole time which will work out as long as this mild weather holds :-) Then of course cooking it medium-well or better. Just need to leave it in a food-grade bucket on the porch. Actually I discovered in all this that the above brine will not freeze at -7C there is so much salt in it. It was that low the first night with the first bird.

2007 Dec 26
btw, the sprigs of rosemary are 6" to 8" long or so.

2007 Dec 26
I brined a turkey breast in a solution of kosher salt, water, dried apples, rosemary, allspice, star anice, pepper, and thyme. It was amazing, the meat was very moist and the skin was so crisp and delish. I'll do it again, it was so easy!

2007 Dec 27
All I have to say is WOW!

That was hands-down the best turkey I've ever eaten. Even better than a deep-fried brined bird. I think 48 hours of brining would have been too much had it not been that most of the time was 0C or lower which I think must have slowed down the process. So it was a tad salty but as someone who is sensitive to that it is by no means overdone. But the honey! Wow! The honey goes all through the bird too - really quite incredible flavour.

2007 Dec 27
Past a certain amount of time I don't think it would make a difference. Just use less salt next time if it was too much ;-) I've never tried with honey before, that I must do. I have tried adding apple juice, and added orange juice to a duck brine once (that was good!)

Glad your bird turned out tastey.

2007 Dec 28
Arrgh.. didn't want to think of cellular mechanics... but I've got to ask (for anyone who might know). Doesn't the salt, and the sugar fight for occupancy inside the bird cells? And doesn't this mean that instead of reducing the salt, you could increase the sugar, to cause less salt to enter the cells and flavour them? I'm visiting my folks right now, or I might dig out some Bio 101 book on osmosis and membrane physics....(if I havne't donated them to charity yet.. which right now I'm really hoping I did...)

2007 Dec 28
I usually brine my turkeys overnight. Brining just makes the birds so much moister and tastier. As well, I find that the cooking time is reduced. I’ll try using honey next time. Zymurgist, wait until you toss a brined turkey in your smoker!

Pete, this site discusses brining for smoked foods: www.virtualweberbullet.com I’ll go with osmosis as you get both a sweet and salty taste. Then again, my 1st year science courses were such a long time ago.

2007 Dec 28
Yeah, I'm looking forward to the spring again and brining some stuff for the smoker!

2007 Dec 28
Hey,

This is my first comment on this website, couldn't help but throw my 2 cents in regarding brined turkey... I have been doing a brined/roasted turkey for Christmas dinner for several years in a row now, using the following Martha Stewart recipe: 32 cups (2 gallons) of cold water, 2 cups Wild Turkey bourbon, 2 cups + 2 T. coarse salt, and 1 cup of sugar. This is enough brine to do at least a 15-20 lb turkey. Stir it all up in a large container (I bought a Home Depot bucket that you normally mix grout or something in, and only use it for the brine every year) until the salt and sugar are dissolved, put a fresh (or at least freshly-thawed) turkey in the brine, and refrigerate for 18-36 hours. It's best to have a 2nd fridge in the house to accommodate this large container; otherwise try to keep it somewhere fairly cold. The bird usually seems to stay completely submerged in the brine, but you can always weight it down with a plate or something to keep it under the liquid. After you remove the turkey from the brine, dry and pat well with paper towels, let stand at room temperature for an hour or so before roasting. You will be surprised at how moist and flavourful (not salty) this makes the finished product. The white meat will be MUCH moister. The bourbon imparts a wonderful flavour. I also roast the turkey in oven bags ("Look" bags, available at Loblaws) to eliminate constant basting... ;-)

2007 Dec 29
I like the idea of the bourbon!

BTW, one thing I forgot to mention to anyone trying this the first time is that it will result in some very black skin on the turkey because of the honey. But don't worry it's only skin-deep ;-) Just don't want anyone thinking "crap, what did I screw up".

I did mine about 90 minutes uncovered then about 90 covered with foil.

2009 Mar 31
Yay! Finally a video on brining!

:-)



My wife is going crazy with all my videos of everything. Did one of trimming a tree today too, and another food one - day 3 of sprouting. You'll have to wait til day 6 for my full sprouting video though :-)

EDIT : Oh, my initial recipe far above has way too much pepper. FF, can you change it to 1 tsp?

2009 Apr 1
Zym - "Trimming a Tree"... that must look cute on this April Fools Day, your Christmas Tree up.
;-)

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Believe the word you were looking for was "pruning".

2009 Apr 1
So we unloaded the brined stuff today and packaged it up and froze it again. I know that is warned against, but where it has been very severely brined, and as long as it is cooked 3/4 to well-done, I think it is OK.

Right now I have dumped the 13L of brining solution from one bucket into my 15L pot. I've washed out the bucket with soap and water, will bring the solution to a slight boil and leave sit for 30 minutes, then return it to my bucket with more meat. I'm going to try to get all of my summer brining done in the next few day so as not to waste the solution.

2009 Apr 2
Just put down another 27L bucket. This time it had :
- 10 lb pork neck
- 2 large ham hocks ($1.50/lb - about $6 for 2)
- 9 more chicken carcasses

Gonna make brined broth this time intead of plain broth that my wife likes.

Had some of the pork neck on the cheap-ass cast iron grill and it was fantastic! Chicken drums as well. Video to follow soon.

2009 Apr 2
you could toss in a duck or two
or even venison

2009 Apr 2
I'm going just for bargain meats right now Obi

The ham hocks were breaking the bank :-)

2009 Apr 2
frozen ducks in chinatown are dirt cheap
both whole and legs YUM!
hmm oxtail!

2009 Apr 2
Hmmm, must look more closely - thanks! I know that oxtail is cheap at 168

2009 Apr 2
kowloon normally had duck legs on sale

normally I do a "saturation brine": liquid with sugar and salt at a ratio of 2:1
and add as much as the liquid will take

if you refrig it keeps at least a week between brining or a month if you freeze it

also with things like duck legs with need a bit of tenderizing I will add pineapple juice

my fave brine is 2 parts pineapple juice, 1 part soya, fresh ginger, star anise, pink peppercorn and crushed chili flakes works great with pork, duck, venison, rabbit, you get the drift

with oxtail if it is skin-on, do remember to score the skin so the brine can get in

good brining!

2010 Nov 15
I was poking about through old posts, looking for ideas on how I'm going to bring my Christmas Turkey this year and I came across this thread. Wow! so much info and ideas!

I've always brined our homegrown broiler chickens, and I tell my customers to brine as well, it's just so finger lickin' good! But this will be the first time I've brined a turkey.

For this beautiful pasture raised organic turkey we bought from Dunbrae Farms, (it's about 17 pounds) we're going to use a colman cooler. This poultry is too portly to fit in a bucket!

I was reading for ideas on what type of seasonings to use and read zymurgists comment about boiling before brining: "I boiled it first of course for about 20 minutes then put it right into a food-grade bucket overnight on the side porch."

All these years I've been brining chicken, and I've never heard of boiling first.
So, why boil?

2010 Nov 15
I think you misunderstood what I wrote - or I did not explain it well enough.

I brined one bird, took it out, and then brined another in the same bucket. But before sticking the 2nd one in there I took the brining liquid out and boiled it so that any bacteria which did manage to grow in there would be killed.

Was not boiling the bird.


2010 Nov 15
I'm not a briner myself (or even a turkey cooker for that matter!) but I just caught this video on chow.com that seemed to have some pretty good pointers:

www.chow.com/videos#!/show/all/55354/how-to-brine-your-holiday-turkey-with-michael-chiarello

2010 Nov 16
Ok, zymurgyst that makes WAY more sense!! silly me. I'd just never heard of that, and figured this bird boiling could be some secret technique that chefs use. lol!

I think I might try a variation on what you did with the honey but with less honey so the turkey doesn't over brown when roasting. I can get nice organic fresh cranberries from our market, so I think I'll add those to my brine. Haven't decided what else yet, but I think I'll do a trial run on one of our chickens later this month.

2010 Nov 16
I just brined and roasted my first turkey this weekend! All I have to say is WOW!!! So good! I am always going to brine my turkeys from now on. We only had an 8lb turkey (there is only 2 of us). I brined it for about 11hrs, maybe next time I will brine it longer. (I have lots of pictures on my blog if you're interested)

I really want to try deep frying a turkey. Living in an apartment makes it a little difficult. Plus I don't want to set the place on fire! Maybe my parents will let me do it in their backyard!

2010 Nov 16
In the event your parents let you light up in the back yard, just beware that brining the bird before deep frying yields a MUCH darker (possibly unappetizing so) bird.

I do 4-5 a year and never brine. The cooking process is so fast and uniform, IMO it is not necessary.

That said, I also don't bother brining pre-oven roasting either anymore. After YEARS of brining, I have found that I get a great bird by 1) starting the temp at 450F for 20 mins, 2) cooking the bird breast down, and 3) covering the bird for all but the last 1/2 hour... when I flip it breast up and let it get crispy. The other key is that I use an in oven thermometer and pull it precisely when the breast hits 163.