Ref; Brining a Bird <A Turkey that is>

[TomKnollRFV]

Late night post as I try to wind down for bed..earlier then I have been. Go Insomnia!

I want to brine our bird tommorrow through till it goes in the oven. So I'd guess it'll get 16-20 hours. I don't really do the oven part on Thanksgiving, I'm in charge of most every thing else but the Turkey.

I was going to do a 1/2 cup salt to Gallon of water, throw in some seasonings. Any one got advice? I loathe much sodium, and my uncle has to watch his sodium, so beyond the brine, I don't plan to add any more seasonings before it ends up in the oven and I am released from my duties.

 

[mike243]

Elton brown has a good recipe but if its pre injected and most are you wont getnmuch flavor to stick good luck

 

[PAS]

I was planning on using a brine and injecting my first turkey but when I read the Butterball package it has already been brined. Dont want to risk "too much salt" so I wont inject or brine. Next time we will buy a fresh "unmolested" bird.

 

[zwiller]

As always I am going to follow Elton's brother Alton Brown's brine recipe as it is AMAZING!

I get everyone trying to watch sodium intake at Thanksgiving but there is a super high chance everything else will be so sodium laden that a slice or 6 of brined turkey is going to be like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic in hopes that it wouldn't sink as fast.

Holly with the early internet win of the day... LOL.

Wife is from lifelong fans of Butterball/Honeysuckle and I am here to tell you that they may be enhanced but they are far from ideal. Compare the sodium figures from the bird to lunchmeat... Brine/inject but use restraint. 1/2C to a gallon is good, that is half of the standard strength brine if using kosher salt, 1/4C if table salt. Wife is in charge of the bird here but if I had my way I would do the Brown Brothers Brine but would convert it to a 10% injection so not so wasteful. The key to that brine is often overlooked: the black pepper.

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Largely the brine for me is an intent to make it moist, not so much flavour imparting. My family has a tradition of making turkey similiar to chewing on dried grass when you are dehydrated unless I interfere. My uncle has come to expect me to interfere.

What blows my mind is, apparently, my grandma used to actually stuff the bird, and put butter under the skin. So I don't know why they never understood the concept of keeping the bird moist. I'll check out that Elton Brown recipe and...

Holly; I don't even use salted butter :P

 

[tallbm]

Late night post as I try to wind down for bed..earlier then I have been. Go Insomnia!

I want to brine our bird tommorrow through till it goes in the oven. So I'd guess it'll get 16-20 hours. I don't really do the oven part on Thanksgiving, I'm in charge of most every thing else but the Turkey.

I was going to do a 1/2 cup salt to Gallon of water, throw in some seasonings. Any one got advice? I loathe much sodium, and my uncle has to watch his sodium, so beyond the brine, I don't plan to add any more seasonings before it ends up in the oven and I am released from my duties.

Pop's low sodium brine/cure only uses 1/2 a cup of salt per gallon. I think you will be fine but understand his is a multi day brine/cure process so you may get less sodium than you are imagining with a 20 hour brine.

Best of luck with it! :)

 

[zwiller]

The real key to moist bird is to pull at proper IT. Brining helps and gives you some leeway, but once overcooked you're done.

 

[browneyesvictim]

My head is going to hurt thinking about calculating % solutions, but I want to call a time-out!

DaveO taught me a little something that clicked for me. You don’t have to be a math or science whiz to be a bit more enlightened… Let’s look at what that label on a turkey that says “8% solution” really means… Semantics matter! What does “Enhanced” mean?

- Adding 8 grams of sodium to 100 grams of water is called an "8% CONCENTRATION", not "SOLUTION".

-A “% solution” is calculated on the weight of the meat. If you have a 1000 gram turkey, 80 grams of water or stock would be 8% of the weight of the bird. No matter how much sodium "concentration" you dissolve into that 8% water is still an "8% solution" added (directly injected) to the weight of the meat.

Now this is all directly injecting which is easy to calculate, and the CONCENTRATION is typically only figured around 2% concentration of a 8% SOLUTION (and probably other ingredients dissolved in that 8% “Enhanced” solution)

But if you dissolve 1/2 cup of salt into 1 gallon of water for immersion brining you will get:

1 gallon of water = 3780 grams
1/2 C Morton Kosher Salt= ~124 grams
124 Grams / 3780 Grams X 100% = 3.2 % concentration

So plop that “Un-enhanced” ~5 Kilo bird into ~4 Kilos of brine at 3.2% concentration there will be an equilibrium of something less than 3.2% uptake of sodium occurring the longer you let it go (absorption rates)…

Even if you put a 2% concentration (8% solution) enhanced bird into a 3.2% brine for a day or two, the equilibrium between the two will be only slightly increase the sodium concentration above the existing 2%.

 

[texomakid]

Whoa...... that's deep. I'm brining a bird as we speak. Very interesting and thanks for sharing.

 

[browneyesvictim]

Haha... probably More than you wanted to know..

Good luck and happy thanksgiving!

 

[zwiller]

Haha... probably More than you wanted to know..

Not at all. That's sticky material! Thank you for taking the time to run the numbers and put that together. Once you really start to embrace the science, you realize how better off your are injecting instead of brining since you have so much more control. Injecting removes many variables that you really can't control. Especially time.

A little more math: per Butterball. There is 200mg sodium in 112g (4oz) in their frozen turkey.
https://www.butterball.com/products/whole-turkeys/frozen

Salt is 40% sodium, so you need 500mg of salt to reach 200mg sodium. (500*.4=200) 500mg is half a gram as 1000mg equals 1g. .5g/112g = .004 or .4%. 2% is a standard salt level in sausage making and 5x more than what is in that bird. I have found 1% is perfect middle ground and is very natural tasting and not obvious. BTW their turkey deli meat is 800mg sodium or 1.6% salt.