Dry brining

Dry brining is a technique popularized by Chef Judy Rodgers of San Francisco's famous Zuni Cafe. It is different from wet brining, where we submerge the food in a salt water solution of 5 to 10% salinity. It is different from injecting, where we pump the meat with a brine with a needle.

With dry brining we simply salt the meat a few hours before cooking. Sounds simple, but something complex and wonderful happens.

Salt does several things to the food. First of all, it amps up the taste because salt is a flavor enhancer. But if you do it properly, it doesn't make the food taste salty. For more on the subject of how salt impacts food, read my article on The Zen of Salt.

But something else happens. Salt is made of sodium and chloride ions that carry electrical charges. These ions attack the proteins, causing them to unwind a bit, a process called denaturing. These altered proteins have a greater ability to retain water, so meat that has been treated with salt remains moister through the cooking process.

You can see it working in the pictures here. In the top picture the meat has been sprinkled with kosher salt. The salt draws water out of the meat. The water dissolves the salt. See how the meat has become shiny with moisture and the fat has become splotchy in the middle picture?

Then, in the bottom picture, the meat reabsorbs the moisture (and much of the juices that have leaked out) bringing the salt in with it. Notice how the color of the fat has changed where the salt has soaked in.

Once inside the meat it doesn't go far. As with wet brining, it stays near the surface, but that's where the moisture is needed because that's were we apply the most heat.

For steaks and chops

Take the meat out of the fridge about an hour before cooking and pat it thoroughly dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle salt on the meat, a little more than you would use at tableside, massage it in, and let it come to room temp before cooking. If you want, put it on a wire rack so air will surround the meat.

For roasts

For bigger cuts of meat like roasts, measure 1/2 tablespoon of table salt (1 tablespoon of kosher salt) for every 5 pounds of meat. Rub the dry brine mixture over the entire surface area, place it in a food-grade plastic bag, press out the air and seal tightly. For best results, refrigerate for up to 2 days.

For chicken and turkey parts

For safety reasons, chicken and turkey should not be left out at room temp so do the same thing as for steaks and chops, just leave it in the fridge. The problem with chicken and turkey is that they are more likely to be contaminated in the slaughterhouse than steaks and chops and because the meat is more porous and the contamination can penetrate the muscles. Contamination grows much more rapidly at room temp. If there is bacterial contamination on a steak it does not go far beyond the surface, and it is killed rapidly during cooking. If there is contamination on chicken or turkey it can be deeper into the muscles where heat takes longer to penetrate so if you undercook, there is a greater risk of getting sick.

For whole chicken and whole turkey

This page was revised on 12/18/2011