Is Brining Chicken Worth Doing? (Brine vs. Injection vs. None)
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- Опубліковано 9 чер 2024
- Is brining chicken worth the time, effort and fridge space? Let's put it to the test.
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I put a 24-hour wet-brined chicken against a marinade-injected chicken and a dry-rub only (control) chicken to see which tasted best and whether wet-brining made a small improvement or major improvement in taste.
This also got me thinking - does brine really get deep into the center of the meat? To test this, I brined a chicken thigh in blue copper sulfate (Do not try this at home!) and cut a cross-section to see how deep the brine penetrates.
Question
What's your go-to method for preparing BBQ chicken?
About BBQ Experiments
Hey 👋 I'm Marcus and each week I run an experiment testing something BBQ-related to help you level up your BBQ knowledge. From busting BBQ myths like "If you're looking it ain't cooking" to injecting copper sulfate into chicken to learn whether dry brine outperforms wet brine, this show is unapologetically for the nerds of BBQ.
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Table of contents:
00:00 Introduction
00:19 Experiment
00:35 Making chicken brine
01:11 Does brine reach the center?
02:03 Does brined chicken taste better?
02:15 Taste test: Dry rub (control)
02:28 Taste test: Brined chicken
02:50 Taste test: Marinade injected chicken
03:18 Is brining chicken worth it?
#bbqexperiments #bbq #bbqchicken
Watch this video next where I test wet brining against dry brining to see how they compare in taste, brine penetration and skin crispiness: ua-cam.com/video/Rp5VSBuVTQM/v-deo.html
Really useful - the copper sulphate test was really interesting. Will definitely consider brining for future bbqs!
Glad you found it useful - it's definitely worth it if you have the time
Great video & I liked the dye test, brining chicken definitely gives great results 👍🏻
Thanks Al 🙏 yea the dye test was fun - I did think it was going to go deeper than it did!
Good work, mate! Keep it up
Thanks mate!
Great experiment. I'd wet brined couple times, but I find overnight dry brine to be more convenient. That might be worth comparing. One advantage to dry brine in the fridge over a cooling rack, the chicken skin will be dry, ready to crisp up.
There's an experiment going live in two weeks comparing wet vs dry!
brines 😉
Where I'm leaning after all of these brining tests is I see dry brining as improving the taste by say 3X and wet brining by 3.5X, so if I'm looking for the absolute best result I can get I'll do a wet brine, but if I'm doing thighs or being more pragmatic a dry brine will give me almost all the upside with way less effort. And you're absolute right about the crispy skin!
@@BBQExperiments I'll be looking forward for the experiment. Your channel is pretty interesting and engaging.
There is no comparison between a brined chicken and just a dry rubbed chicken. None at all. brined chicken wins hands down forEVER. My son-in-law introduced me to this and he too indirect barbecued an entire fryer. His brine solution was
one cup of regular white sugar and one cup of Pickling salt,
but he said you could use regular table salt if you wanted to. He dissolved that in boiling water then add ice to it off and added whole fryer and then covered the whole thing with water to submerge the chicken. And added more ice. He brined in the refrigerator overnight… Or about eight hours. It was unbelievable. I don’t know how deep that brine penetrated, but it was the best chicken I have ever tasted off of barbecue. And I made it again myself for a couple of friends and they ate it like maniacs. Couldn’t stop eating. All that was left was a pile of bones at the end of dinner among four people.
I will tell you that if it’s something small like thighs or breasts or wings, if you brine that for more than about four hours it’s gonna be too salty. You won’t be able to eat it. I only brine entire whole chicken carcasses overnight. Right now I am actually brining 2 Cornish game hens and I’m only gonna let them brine for about 2 1/2 hours. I might go a little longer but no longer than four hours. You’re risking making it taste so salty that it’s just inedible if you go too long on a small piece of chicken carcass. That is the voice of experience speaking. I’ve screwed up some chicken by brining it for too long. It’s also, in my opinion critical to add the sugar component. I don’t know what it does chemically but the salt and the sugar combined is incredible. I’m not making this up.
Interesting! I haven't tried adding sugar in the brine but can see how that'd work! And 100% agree on the wings/breasts/thighs I much rather dry brine as it's hard to overdo it whereas wet brining can result in them being way too salty.