Dry Brining - Where To Let It Brine?

[UncaBuddha]

Cheap dorm style fridge might work. Small enough to put away when you aren't brining and don't want to leave another appliance plugged in. Shouldn't be too expensive.

[rickgregory]

Spinaker - ah. That's the difference... I don't apply rub when I dry brine since the rub doesnt penetrate. I dry brine, then pull, apply rub and smoke either right away or while the coals are coming to temp etc (within an hour or so).

[Spinaker]

Sitting in the liquid removes the even application of the rub on the surface of the meat.

[JoeSousa]

zzdocxx Guess it depends on what you are dry brining. For larger pieces of meat (briskets, pork butt, turkey, etc.) I try to go two days but for steaks, tri tip, chicken wings, and the like one day is perfectly fine.

[zzdocxx]

Yeah I'm basically experimenting or playing around with techniques here. These are choice and I usually try to buy prime, but the cost has gone up a lot so for $6.99/lb I figured why not. Maybe the dry brine would make up for the grade a bit.

Interesting how the salt on the exposed meat has turned the meat very red, in the direction of cherry red. I imagine that's normal but I just had not seen it before.

[rickgregory]

shify - I get that for steaks - good point. I was mostly thinking of meats we're going to smoke for several hours.

[rickgregory]

Ok but why keep it out of its liquid? If the idea is that cold and wet helps smoke, I can't see how that hurts. I guess my issue here is that it makes no real sense to me to dry the surface of the meat out, then spritz because you want moisture to capture smoke.

If all of this is personal preference, cool, but it feels like if you want the meat dry, spritzing just undoes all that and if you want it wet, drying it in the cold air is counter-productive.

[shify]

Same reason as for poultry. Dry the outer layer which helps great a great crust on it. In my opinion this is more necessary for steaks vs roast which should have enough time at a low temp to dry the surface prior to any final sear. But for a steak, that ultra dry surface gives you a killer sear on a grill.

[TripleB]

For that big hunk of beef/pork, why not put it on a rack that is placed on a cookie sheet and wrap the cookie sheet with plastic wrap. Meat does not dry out, nor sit in its own juices....Viola!!!

[barelfly]

Garage refrigerator. But I realize that isn’t an option for everyone. If I didn’t have that option, I probably wouldn’t do many dry brines and would just salt an hour or so before or just skip it.

I also don’t cover the beef when I dry brine, it is in the open using a sheet pan and rack. The stackable system you show earlier could work, just ensure you don’t have anything else below that could get contaminated if something were to drip.

[bardsleyque]

I'm lucky enough to also have two garage fridge's, start looking on craigslist!

[zzdocxx]

I was trying for sort of a yin-yang thing.

[Rod]

If it's on a rack it won't be sitting in it's juices.

[Dadof3Illinois]

I guess I’m thinking more along the lines of Spinaker and want to keep it out of its own liquid. I’ve typically never needed to put any extra moisture on the meat before adding the rub but I’m usually more interested in getting a nice even bark which to me means keeping it dry. The only time I have any issues getting enough smoke on the product is if I use the pellet grill but that’s another issue all on it’s own…Ha.

[Spinaker]

I don't like it sitting in the juices while it is dry brining. I always spritz it when I take it out of the fridge, then put it in the freezer to get the surface of the meat cold. Then I put it on the smoker.