Brining Semi Frozen Brisket Question.

[holehogg]

It is the best looking piece of brisket I have seen since I’ve been buying the cut. A section of the point and weighs 5#. I did not hesitate to pay the asking price for this reason.
I hadn’t planned a brisket cook so I asked them to vacuum seal for freezing. It is now defrosting in the fridge for Sundays cook.

Can I remove it from the bag and salt while it is still fairly frozen. Is there any reason or reasons why this is or is not a good idea. I like to give at least 24 hours for dry brine but don’t look like it’s going to be completely defrosted before tomorrow evening, leaving only 12 hours before the cook.

[dsohmer]

I would start running luke warm water over it to defrost it quicker before I dry brined it while it was still frozen.

[holehogg]

Prefer to defrost completely in fridge.

[Frozen Smoke]

The salt would only penetrate as far as the meat is thawed I would imagine. I usually season my briskets a couple hours before it goes on the pit and that seems to work fine. I've never did the dry brine thing on a brisket other than that. My opinion is don't rush it let it thaw slowly then do what you want after that.

Seeing as how it's the nicest one you've had handle it with care and keep it simple. Let the beef flavor do the talking!

[holehogg]

Was what I was thinking but was hoping maybe I was wrong. I've read your posts on how you go about seasoning butts and briskets. I have done shorter brine's and they were ok but this is a much thicker piece than I've ever had before.

[ecowper]

the tough part would be getting salt to stay on the bottom side of the meat if you have it on a wire rack.

[JeffJ]

From a chemistry standpoint, I don't know why the salt wouldn't penetrate the frozen meat.

Like ecowper said, the key is getting it to stick long enough to penetrate. If you wet the surface you should be able to get the salt to stick on both sides.

If you have a vacuum-sealer, in the future I recommend removing the meat from the store packaging, dry-brining and then freezing. I do this all of the time and sometimes don't cook the meat until a couple of months later. It works like a charm.

[holehogg]

I always buy my beef fresh and never freeze but would brine before freezing if I do in the future.

[texastweeter]

You can dry brine (or wet brine for that matter) while the meat is still semi frozen. The salt will actually speed the thawing process based on my experience, as well as reduce the amount of purge created by the ice crystals puncturing the cell walls of the meat.

[holehogg]

Thanks nice to know for future. I brined earlier today and still was partly frozen so all should be good. If I smoke bone out chicken breasts for my wagon meals I put them frozen in a cooler box with salt water with a bit of sugar and before they go into the cooker the next day they haven't yet defrosted completely and they turn out good.