To brine or not to brine that is the question

dinger · Newbie Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 89

I understand in the day one had to brine meat for preservation' but with refrigeration do we really have to brine a fresh piece of say turkey' ham or beef even fish. It is an awful lot of salt to add. Or do wee add all that salt so we can cook at lower temperatures. Just asking a few questions.
Dinger
From the great white north

Raine · BBQ Pro Joined: 06 Feb 2005 Posts: 598 Location: Dixie

I'm sure someone can provide a brine without a lot of salt. You will get lots of good advice, even differing advice

SoEzzy · Posted: Apr 19 2011 Post subject:

It depends on what you are making.

Ham or corned beef / pastrami, would not be the same if it was not cured with salt.

Turkey doesn't need to be brined, but manufacturers often add an extra 12% brine solution or enhancement, that way they can sell you a couple of quarts of water and some salt, and charge you turkey prices for it.

I would always prefer to buy meat and then brine or not brine it myself.

We get meat a whole lot sooner than we used to, younger meat quicker from the producers, but the techniques are out there to make them an extra buck, would we buy as much, if it cost proportionally higher / lb to compensate for the injected brine, I for one suspect we would buy nearly as much.
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Harry Nutczak · Posted: Apr 19 2011 Post subject:

Curing is a way of preserving, adding flavor, and reducing the chances of spoilage and deadly bacteria from growing.

Curing also changes the texture, and it sets the natural color of meats too.

The easiest wy to explain this is; If you take a chunk of fresh pork and just toss it in the smoker without curing it first, you will get a chunk of roasted pork when it is done. But if you cure it, you will get something that resembles a cured ham when it is complete.

If you plan on smoking something at an ambient cooking/smoking temperature of less than 200 degrees, you need to use a proper cure to combat deadly bacteria such as C. Botulinum (Botulism) from growing.

Salt is not enough to properly cure meats, you need to add a propoer curing agent such as Sodium Nitrite these days since the salt we use has been purified to remove these naturally occuring nitrites/nitrates from it during processing.
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