All buttermilk??

[Ducati62]

Hello all,
I’ve been using Jeff’s buttermilk brined Turkey recipe for years now and always get requests each year to cook Thanksgiving Turkey the same way. The question I have is the buttermilk brine solution. Has anyone used all buttermilk before versus half water half buttermilk?? Did it make a difference from what you could tell? I’ve read several recipes on line calling for all buttermilk. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies if this subject has been discussed a thousand times.
Bill
Yoder YS-640

 

[tallbm]

Hello all,
I’ve been using Jeff’s buttermilk brined Turkey recipe for years now and always get requests each year to cook Thanksgiving Turkey the same way. The question I have is the buttermilk brine solution. Has anyone used all buttermilk before versus half water half buttermilk?? Did it make a difference from what you could tell? I’ve read several recipes on line calling for all buttermilk. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies if this subject has been discussed a thousand times.
Bill
Yoder YS-640

Hi there and welcome!

I have not used buttermilk brine for Turkey or Chicken, HOWEVER I have used a ton of water brines/cures.

If you know the buttermilk brine works and I can testify to water brine working well then I think you will have no issue on half buttermilk and half water brine.

The main thing to me with any brine is to get your salt ratio correct and sugar ratio if using any.
I like 1.65% or so on poultry these days.
This means weigh your water and the bird (in ounces or grams for easy math) then multiply that number by 0.0165 to get the amount of salt needed to dissolve into the brine to hit 1.65% and ensure you never get too salty.

Let us know what you land on for your brine :)

 

[Ducati62]

Hi there and welcome!

I have not used buttermilk brine for Turkey or Chicken, HOWEVER I have used a ton of water brines/cures.

If you know the buttermilk brine works and I can testify to water brine working well then I think you will have no issue on half buttermilk and half water brine.

The main thing to me with any brine is to get your salt ratio correct and sugar ratio if using any.
I like 1.65% or so on poultry these days.
This means weigh your water and the bird (in ounces or grams for easy math) then multiply that number by 0.0165 to get the amount of salt needed to dissolve into the brine to hit 1.65% and ensure you never get too salty.

Let us know what you land on for your brine :)

Thanks for the great info!