Dry Brine Fail

[scottranda]

Don't quote me on "more potent". I do know table salt is denser.

[ecowper]

Table salt is much denser than kosher salt. If you followed the 1/2 tsp per pound recommendation, you ended up with far too much salt. You need to find a conversion for your brand of table salt compared to Morton's Kosher Salt (which is what Meathead uses). Or buy a box of Morton's Kosher Salt. Beware that Morton's and Crystal Kosher Salt do not have the same density, either.

When cooking, you either need to use exactly the type of salt the recipe calls for, or be able to convert the measurements from one type of salt to another.

[scottranda]

And you must make sure the meat wasn't packaged already salted (or in a salty solution) before you put your salt on the meat.

Plus, I think table salt is more potent than kosher salt. Go to kosher salt and use Kathryn's measurement above.

[fzxdoc]

How much salt did you use, Chas Martel ?

Meathead recommends 1/2 tsp kosher salt (or 1/4 tsp table salt) per pound of trimmed meat.

Kathryn

[Chas Martel]

I tried dry brining the first Boston Butt I cooked on my new pellet smoker. The butt was about 8 lbs. and i coated it with table salt the night before, wrapped it tight in cellophane, and left it in the fridge overnight before putting it on the smoker in the morning. I put it under a running faucet and rinsed off all the salt on the surface before applying Memphis Dust as the rub. When the cook was done, the meat near the surface tasted excessively salty. I'm inclined never to dry brine again. Since this episode I have smoked 2 briskets, another pork shoulder butt and several slabs of ribs without dry brining. All these cooks resulted in excellent meat products.

Did I do something wrong with the dry brine attempt?