Breasts 1 and 6 were included as a control to ensure that the brine and salt solutions were behaving as expected, as well as a means of evaluating how closely the data would mirror that of the turkey breasts. Here's what happened with breasts 1, 2, 3, and 6 plain, brined, salted, and water-soaked. As expected, the brined chicken breasts held on to significantly more moisture than either the plain chicken breasts or the water-soaked chicken breasts. Indeed, in this test, the water-soaked breasts actually ended up drier on average than the plain breasts.
Take a look at the carnage:. Dry as the Gobi Desert on an admittedly very-moist-for-a-desert day. On the other hand, take a look at the brined breast:. As plump and juicy as a benevolent aunt in a Disney film. Tasting it, you definitely feel a case of wet-sponge syndrome. Water comes out of it as you chew, giving you the illusion of juiciness, but the texture is a little too loose, and the flavor a little bland.
Moving on to the salted breast, we find that it's still significantly moister than the unsalted breast though it was a couple of percentage points drier than the brined breast. Tasting it, you'll find it's undoubtedly juicier and better-seasoned, with a stronger chicken flavor. Texture-wise, it's significantly different from both plain and brined turkey, with the smooth, dense-but-tender texture of lightly cured meat. Visually, you can see clear signs of this curing with its decidedly pink hue:.
With a small chicken breast, this pink, moist, cured section extends nearly to the center of the breast. On a turkey, you'd see it only around the outer edges which, serendipitously, happen to be the parts most prone to overcooking and drying out anyway. While the brined breast was slightly juicier, flavor-wise and texture-wise, I'd take the salted chicken over the brined any day. First off, don't try to brine your turkey or chicken in cider or any other acidic marinade, for that matter.
Don't do it. Just don't. The acid in the cider will kick off the denaturization process in the meat, effectively "cooking" it without heat. The results? Ultra-dry meat, with a wrinkled, completely desiccated exterior, like this:. More interesting were the results of the broth-soaked chicken. It seems like the ultimate solution, right? If brining forces bland water into your meat, why not replace that water with flavorful broth? Unfortunately, physics is a fickle mistress who refuses to be reined in.
When I tasted the broth-soaked chicken next to the plain brine-soaked chicken, there was barely a noticeable difference in flavor at all. What the heck was going on? There are two principles at work here. The first is that, while broth is a pure liquid to the naked eye, broth actually consists of water with a vast array of dissolved solids in it that contribute to its flavor. Most of these flavorful molecules are organic compounds that are relatively large in size—on a molecular scale, that is—while salt molecules are quite small.
So, while salt can easily pass across the semipermeable membranes that make up the cells in animal tissue, larger molecules cannot. Additionally, there's an effect called salting out, which occurs in water-based solutions containing both proteins and salt. Think of a cup of broth as a college dance party populated with cheerleaders the water—let's call them the Pi Delta Pis , nerds the proteins—we'll refer to them as the Lambda Lambda Lambdas , and jocks the salt—obviously the Alpha Betas.
Now, at a completely jock-free party, the nerds actually have a shot at the cheerleaders, and end up commingling with them, forming a homogeneous mix. Giving your Thanksgiving bird a bath in salt water isn't complicated, but there a few things to know before you start the brining process. Here, we outline exactly how to brine a turkey for delicious results. Follow our instructions to prepare a perfectly brined turkey and download our complete turkey guide for more Thanksgiving tips. Turkey is a relatively lean bird, and the breast-to-leg ratio isn't ideal i.
For many home cooks , brining is one way to counteract the dryness. The process—soaking the turkey in a saline solution prior to cooking it—helps the turkey take in extra moisture, resulting in moist and juicy dark and light meat. Perhaps the most important part of brining is planning ahead. Not only does the brining itself take anywhere from eight to 18 hours, but making the solution can also take awhile. You'll want the salt to dissolve into the water—and a reliable way to ensure that happens is by heating the water and simmering it until the salt is completely absorbed.
Then, you need to cool the brine to room temperature before using it, since pouring hot or warm brine over a raw turkey can cause bacteria growth. First, on the practical side, it can be tricky to brine a giant Thanksgiving turkey since it needs to be submerged in the liquid, so you need a food-grade container significantly larger than the turkey.
A large cooler works, but a trash bag doesn't. Secondly, we approach the culinary reasons. As Harold McGee, renowned food scientist and experimenter once claimed, "You'd be angry with your butcher if he did it. Brining, or soaking meat in a salt-water solution, uses the power of osmosis to force the turkey or other meat to draw up water into itself. The theory is that the meat ends up juicier and moister that way. The problem is that it is a fake juiciness. Real juiciness comes from the meat holding on to its own moisture, not holding onto some water seasoned or not in which it has been soaked.
A butcher would do it to add weight to the bird. If the hassle of brining doesn't strike you as the be-all and end-all of turkey preparation, but you want that tasty, juicy goodness, there is an alternative called " dry brining ," also known as "pre-salting. And what about the juiciness? For the same reason brining works—osmosis—so, too, does pre-salting. Rinse and pat dry before roasting. Place the turkey breast side up in a large turkey roasting pan with a rack and let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.
Rub softened butter all over your turkey, coating all of the skin and carefully pulling the skin away from the breasts to rub butter underneath. Starting the turkey at a super high temperature makes for crispier skin. When the turkey is done, transfer it to a carving board to rest.
Tasters thought that the dry-brined turkey had the most flavorful dark meat and the least dried out white meat of all three turkeys.
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