Dry brine

[Harvey]

i am curious. I know the value of dry brining. Is there a difference in salt first the night before or incorporating the salt with the rub the night before? Salt will penetrate the meat either way. The length of time the rub is on should only enhance the taste. I have tried both ways and frankly I can't taste a difference. My experience is not enough to qualify the answer.

[Spinaker]

Harvey Dry Brining is very valuable. What doesn't make much sense from a brining stand point, is adding all the other ingredients when you don't have too. They wont penetrate the meat. But if you have a store bought rub. (like I usually use) I just put the rub on the night before. So I brine with the Rub and the salt at the same time. Not because I think the other flavors will penetrate. Because they wont. I just do it because I use pre-made rubs for my BBQ, and they all have salt.

[Harvey]

I mix my own rub. I put the salt in the rub and I don't notice a diffrence if I do it separate or together.

[Jerod Broussard]

I do both. I don't like to apply a rub with sugar ahead of time. The salty-rub I apply ahead of time has no sugar.

[Spinaker]

Why the wait for sugary rubs?

[DeusDingo]

i would imagine if you salt with your rub it will take longer to penetrate since the moisture from the meat has to work it's way through the rest of the rub to get to all the salt and then for the salt to get drawn into the moisture to the meat through the rub (depending on how thick you pour it on)

[fuzzydaddy]

I measure the amount of Morton's Kosher salt and rubs that I make, separately, so I can control the amounts I apply of each. Ditto to what Spinaker said store bought rubs that contain salt.

[fuzzydaddy]

Oh, and Welome to The Pit Harvey!

[johnec00]

I try to control the amount of salt that I use (doc. says). When I use commercial rubs, I look at the sodium in the "nutrition facts", and ratio to the amount of sodium in kosher salt. For example, the PBC AP rub has 160 mg sodium per 1/4t, while Morton kosher salt has 480 mg per 1/4t. Therefore Meathead's 1/2t salt per pound becomes 1.5t AP rub per pound. I then apply the AP rub 24 hours or so in advance to dry brine. Many commercial rubs don't state the amount of sodium but I seldom use any commercial rubs other than the PBC stuff.

[Harvey]

Thanks

[Huskee]

It takes practice to know how much salted rub to apply w/o over- or under-salting your meat. That's really the only downside. Adding a salted rub, assuming you add the right amount, hurts nothing but as others have said may only improve things a wee bit. We leave the rub on pastrami a couple days before smoking. Why? Because some spices will travel inward. not as much as salt, but it'll happen. Spices will travel inward into seafood & fish more than pork, poultry and beef.

BTW welcome to The Pit! We'd love to get an intro from you over in the Introduce Yourself channel when you get a minute. https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...troductions-aa

[DWCowles]

Welcome Harvey

[MBMorgan]

Welcome to the Pit. If the rub contains salt, then I dry brine with it ... fully aware that only the salt will penetrate. If it doesn't then I dry brine with only salt and apply the rub just before cooking.

[Harvey]

Makes sense