how do you brine chicken?

[trekmstr]

?? I've never brined before. hows it done? how long? any thing else i should know? want to do chicken pieces first. thanks.

[Ken V]

I'll tell ya what has worked great for me. I use a brine I got off this site and it gives great flavor to the chicken.
2 quarts apple juice
2 quarts water
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup real maple syrup

submerge chicken or turkey and soak.

chicken parts(legs and thighs) up to 2 to 3 hours
whole chickens up to 12 to 16 hours
whole turkeys 24 to 36 hours.

Was told if left in brine too long meat can get mushy, so far have not had that with any of my times.

Good luck,

Ken

[wildcat89]

whole chicken 31/2 to 4 lbs
2 quarts cold water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup morton sea salt
mix it all together, until salt and sugar dissolve
put the bird in a large container, pour mixture over and put it in the frige for 30 to 60 minutes.
Remove, rinse, pat dry.
season and cook

[thirdeye]

I use this one for chicken. You can pretty much add any other seasonings you want to. Stuff like fresh herbs and slices of lemon or orange are good too.

1 gallon water
6 ounces of kosher salt
1 tablespoon Morton's Tenderquick
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 onion, chopped
¼ cup brown sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons pepper blend or crushed peppercorns


General rules for preparation of brines:

Bring a quart or so of water to a simmer. Dissolve all dry ingredients in the water then add any other seasonings like fresh herbs or lemon slices. The heat will help wake up those flavors. Simmer 5 minutes or so and remove from the heat, allow to cool somewhat. Meanwhile, mix some ice into the remaining water then add it to the hot water. A brine must be cold before adding any meat so transfer the brine to a non-reactive container and chill it in the refrigerator. Overnight is best. (An option to skipping the overnight cool down is to cut back on the 3 quarts of water and substitute more ice) A plastic food grade container works well when making a full batch. A deep CorningWare dish or a zipper bag will work for small batches. Submerge your meat into the brine and return to the refrigerator. Discard after use, do not re-use brines.

Here are some suggested brine times to get you started. If you are sensitive to salt, or experimenting with flavor combinations, try the lower end times first just to play it safe.

Shrimp …………… 10 minutes (use flavor brine #1 only, NO tenderquick)
Chicken breasts … 1 to 4 hours
Pork chops ……… 1 to 4 hours
Whole chickens … 4 hours to overnight
Pork loin ………… 4 hours to overnight
Turkey Breasts … 6 to 24 hours
Whole turkeys … 12 to 48 hours

Following brining, give smaller items a good rinse, and larger items a soak-out in cold water, plus a good final rinse. (The soak-out can be as little as 15 minutes for a whole chicken or several hours for a whole turkey) The next step is some rest time in the refrigerator. Shrimp only need about 15 minutes of resting. I will rest smaller pieces of chicken or pork chops for a couple of hours and up to 8 hours on a turkey breast. The rest lets the salt and flavors retained in the meat disperse and reach a state of equilibrium of sorts. If you cook brined things right after coming out of a brine (even with rinsing or soaking) a lot of the salt is still near the surface. The heat of cooking will draw it out and the evaporation process will concentrate it. Then....when you take a bite, you are met with a salty flavor first. The equalization time lets everything settle down.

[Skidder]

Once you brine a bird you'll never look back. All the rest of your birds right down to grilled chicken wings will be brined.

[Plowboy]

Russ Garrett is as close to the authority on brining as it gets. Check out his Brining 101.

http://www.cookshack.com/brining-101