Why "ice cold" brine?

[dougbennett]

I keep reading that brine should be ice cold, but my fridge only goes so low. What's wrong with just brining at regular olf fridge temp?

 

[smokin' joe]

Fridge temp is fine for a brine. But the food police makes sure we emphasize at or below 40 degrees. Ya dont want to get a case of the E coli.

 

[majorlee69]

I've always assumed it was a safe guard involving the proper temp control of the meat. If you were to put an uncooked bird in boiling hot water than let it set for twenty four hours in the fridge I'd imagine the meat would spoil.

That's just what I "assume"!!

 

[glued2it]

That's right. Bring your brine down to below 40º before inserting meat.
Bacteria grow rapidly above 40º and below 140º!

Using ice can reduce your temps more rapidly!

 

[smokin' joe]

I add some cold apple cider to cool mine down. I have my first ham in a brine right now. Cant wait to show you guys the Q-view.

 

[mulepackin]

It's only going to get warmer as you use it and work with it, until and unless you can get it back into a refer. I usually do 4-8 birds at a time when brining, in 5 or 6 gal buckets. I use plenty of ice while mixing my brines. I store the buckets in the garage when its cold out. It is usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas when I do turkeys. If its not very cold out, I put gal. size ziplocks full of ice into the body cavities, and in the buckets to keep the brine chilled without diluting my brine. Poultry is pretty touchy about proper storage and cooking temps and bacterial growth, particularly salmonella, but others as well.

 

[zapper]

Cold, cold, cold. I sometimes boil about a quart or so of the brine mix to dissove the salt and maybe leech out some flavor of other spices. I then cool this concentrate with ice until I have the volume that I am working towards. I keep everything in the fridge while it brines. If you were to store it outside in a cooler I would also say to keep the liquid from your "cooling" ice seperate from you brine mixture to prevent dilution