Briners beware of double salt jeopardy! Rubs are a great way to add flavor to meat. Brines are also a great way to add flavor as well as moisture. Rubs often contain a lot of salt (click here to read about The Zen of Salt). You can use both a rub and a brine, but beware of double salt jeopardy. If you use a brine and then a rub, you should make your own rub mix and leave the salt out of the blend. A salty rub on top of brined meat can make the meat unbearably salty. Never brine meat that is labeled "enhanced" or "flavor enhanced" or "self-basting" or "basted" because they have been injected with a salt solution. Remember, you can always add salt, but there's no taking it away.

For the Juiciest Meats:
Brine Them

The problem with cooking is that the heat dries out meat because moisture evaporates. And the longer and hotter you cook, more of the moisture escapes.

Marinades do not penetrate more than 1/8" or so and really only add a bit of flavor, mostly on the surface, but not much moisture. Basting and spritzing do not penetrate the meat, all they do is cool down the surface and when you open the oven the oven temp drops a lot. Bad idea. Click here to read my article on basting and spritzing.

There is a way to get moisture deep down into the muscle tissue that will produce juicier meat: Soak it in water. Meat will absorb water.

Better still, soak it in salt water. When there is salt in the water, magic happens. The technique works best on chicken or turkey breasts and lean pork. I have been known to brine pork ribs or chicken legs and thighs, but most of the time, I don't bother. I never brine red meats. They don't need it if you control your heat and time.

Here's what happens in a brine:

Osmosis. This is a well known physical and chemical process that happens when two solvent liquids are separated by a semi-permeable membrane and one has more stuff dissolved in it than the other. So if we had a fish tank divided in two by a semi-permeable membrane, like a thin layer of animal flesh, and one side had fresh water, a solvent, and the other side had salt water, the fresh water would slowly migrate through the membrane to the salty side in an attempt to equalize the saltiness.

Denaturing. Meat proteins are long and coiled and complex. When salt water gets into the meat, the fibers are bathed in sodium cloride in water which create electrical charges. They unwind and form a matrix that traps the moisture so less is lost during cooking. This process is called denaturing. The process does not tenderize. It only adds moisture and improves moisture retention. When my favorite mag, Cook's Illustrated did a test, they discovered that chicken soaked in plain water and brine both gained about 6% by weight. When they cooked both as well as an unsoaked bird straight from the package, the straight chicken lost 18% of its original weight, the chicken soaked in water lost 12% of its presoak weight, and the brined chicken lost only 7% of its presoaked weight.

Flavorizing. Salt will amp up the flavor of just about anything, but too much can make it unpleasant. So the trick is to not make the brine too salty and not leave the meat in too long. If you are on a low salt diet, you can just soak meat in water. That's right, plain water will migrate into the meat and add moisture. It just gets there faster with the help of salt.

Timing. How long should the meat swim in the brine? It depends on the strength of the brine and the thickness of the meat, not the weight. It takes time for salt to move through meat and to suck in water behind it. The more concentrated the brine and the thinner the meat, the faster the meat will reach equilibrium with the surrounding liquid. In other words, it will take longer for a 3" turkey breast to moisturize than it will for a 1 1/2" chicken breast. And it will take more than twice the time. So it doesn't matter what the total weight of the bird is. Find the thickest part of meat and use the timing guide below. Always err on the underside! An underbrined pork chop will still be delicious, especially if you don't overcook it. When it comes to brining, more is not better. A reader who brined ribs overnight emailed me to say the result tasted like ham from a can.

1/2" thick meat should be submerged in brine for 1/2 hour in the refrigerator
1" thick meat should be submerged in brine for 1 hour in the refrigerator
2" thick meat should be submerged in brine for 3 hours in the refrigerator
3" thick meat should be submerged in brine for 8 hours in the refrigerator

Recipe for a basic brine

Recipe for a flavored brine

Yield. Makes 1 gallon, enough for 6 pounds of meat
Preparation. 10 minutes

Ingredients
1/2 gallon hot water
1/2 gallon plus 1 cup of crushed ice
1 cup of table salt
1 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons of garlic powder (not garlic salt)
3 tablespoons ground black pepper

About the salt. If you have it, use pickling salt because it dissolves more easily in cold water and there are no additives. But the grains are larger and there is more air in a cup, so you need to use almost twice as much (1.8 times as much to be exact). Click here for more about the Zen of Salt.

About the sugar. If sugar is added it should not exceed the salt. A good ratio for sugar to salt is 1/2 to 1 part of sugar to 1 part of table salt. Molasses dissolves faster in cold water, but it can color the meat. It is good with some meats, bad with others. Ditto for brown sugar which is colored with molasses.

About the ice. Ice takes up more volume than water, that's why the extra cup. When the ice melts it should yield 1/2 gallon of water. If you use ice cubes not crushed ice, use another cup or two of ice because there is more air between the cubes. It's hard to get this exactly right, but don't sweat it.

Option. If you plan to cook the meat indoors, you might want to add 1/4 cup liquid smoke to the brine to get a mild smoky flavor.

Do this
1) In a non-reactive pot or other container (aluminum or copper are no good, they will react with the salt), stir the dry ingredients in the hot water until the salt and sugar dissolve. If necessary you can boil it. Add the ice until you have a bit more than 1 gallon in total volume. Let the ice dissolve in the hot liquid so that it becomes cold.

2) Submerge the meat in the brine and refrigerate. If you can't fit it in the fridge, you can add ice cubes if the brining time is less than an hour because they will not likely melt completely and dilute the brine too much. If you are brining a thick piece of meat like a turkey, put the ice cubes in a plastic bag. You may need to weight the meat down to submerge it. If you cannot submerge it, make sure you turn it periodically and extend it's time in the bath.

3) Remove the meat, rinse with cold water to wash off excess salt off the surface (this is important), and thoroughly pat dry with paper towels. If time permits, let the meat rest in the refrigerator for another hour to allow the brine to equalize itself throughout the meat and for the rub to penetrate.

This page was revised 3/19/2010