Brining Clarification

I have a few brining questions that I think you guys could help with:

1) I'd like to equilibrium brine an entire medium sized roaster chicken. Roughly how long should I leave the bird in the brining solution? Is this a situation where traditional brining makes more sense for time reasons? (traditional meaning over-salting and timing it correctly).

2) By how much would an injection brine speed this up, and would I also leave it in an equilibrium brine solution in concert with the injection? Or will the injection alone suffice?

3) Why don't we inject everything with brine (ie why is not in the equilibrium brining video but exists separately on the site). Yet another case of "why now and not then?" If flouring your osso bucco "helps the sear", why don't we flour meats to sear?

4) How long in general should you leave something to equilibrium brine given its weight/volume/surface area. The guidelines are very vague (understandably.) I'd like some more concrete estimates for a medium sized chicken and a stand sized pork center-cut loin roast. What has worked for you guys?

5) On the equilibrium brining page, it says some things could take up to weeks to brine. Is it safe to leave raw meat in the fridge for weeks? I know it's in salt, but I would think it'd need to be in a higher salt concentration (above the 1-2%) to prevent spoilage. As an aside I'd love to know how/when exactly salt makes a food safe, but the primary concern is getting my brine questions answered.

I don't buy enough whole birds to figure most of this out by trial and error.

Any help is appreciated!

Best,

Luke

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brian_martin2001

1) If you're going to equilibrium brine a turkey, i'd suggest 2-3 days. If you want to brine your turkey, traditionally higher saline brines do speed up the time. Personally, I dry brine my turkey, but then again, I don't cook my turkey whole.

2) Injecting the brine definately will speed things up. I'm not sure by how much. there's some more information here: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/brining-poultry

3) Because you might not want to poke your product full of holes, or you don't mind waiting There's also the risk of introducing bacteria into the product. "If flouring your osso bucco "helps the sear", why don't we flour meats to sear?" according to whom? I've never heard that. Now, you can form a bit of a crust around meat by using a breading (even if it is just flour) but you don't necessarily want every piece of meat you cook breaded.

4) I've never brined a whole bird. How bigin the pork loin? I've brined pork chops for not more than a day, but I would imagine one about 2 feet long 5 or 6 inches across would be in the ballpark of 3 to 4 days. Again, never done it, just guess-timating.

5) If your refrigerator is cold enough and your meat is from a reputable supplier, you should be fine. I've left meat in the fridge (raw in the supermarket container) for more than a week and it was fine.

Luke_Banchy_283581

Thanks Brian, appreciate your help!

I meant the osso bucco thing more as an example of the "why now and not then thing", but I'm curious now: has no one heard of flouring it? Maybe I'm alone on this one haha. I was taught to dredge them in flour, and this is validated by some online recipes. I was told it was for searing purposes, but maybe it's just breading. Searing made sense because any breading would just disintegrate in a 4 hour braise.