I picked up a whole 10.5lb pork loin on sale and sliced it up into chops. I thought since I was making some on the grill for dinner I would perform a dry brine vs wet brine test, since I normally prefer to wet brine pork chops and chicken pieces.
I decided to do 6 chops, 3 in each method. 3 got ~1/2tsp coarse Kosher salt/lb treatment on both sides, and 3 got my usual wet brine of 1 C table salt to 1 Gal water for 1 hour. In this case I halved the brine since I was only doing 3 chops, 1/2C table salt, 1/2Gal water, 1 hr.
The dry brined chops were wrapped in plastic wrap and placed back in the fridge for approx 3 hrs, the wet brined ones were brined in cold water for ~one hour prior to cooking.
Here is how they looked after being patted dry and coarse fresh-cracked pepper was added, immediately before going on the grill. The left ones were the dry brined ones. Notice how they appear slightly more pink. This was noticeable in person too, perhaps more so.
For my grill setup I used the 2-zone with bricks method, roughly 1/3-1/2 chimney of kingsford on the 22" kettle. One chunk of ash wood for smoke. I used two Maverick 732s so I had one probe for the central grate temp and 3 chops had probes in them.
My temp spiked too high the first 15 min of the cook (345ish) and the chops were nearing 120* already. I wanted a slower cook to get more smoke, so I removed about 20 coals and stifled them in the baby Web. This got my temp to 245 which I was very happy with. I figured this left me with somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of a chimney of lit coals going. (Pictured are the coals before removing some)
The cook took maybe 45-50 min to reach 142-144 on the probed pieces (140-145 was my target "Chef temp"). This was with the first 15 min being 100* over my ideal cooker temp.
Here is one of the dry brined pieces
And here is one of the wet brined pieces
You can see there is virtually no visual difference on the outside of them, as you'd probably expect.
Now to cut into them...
Here is the dry brined one cut open
Slightly pink through out, juicy. Perfect.
Now here are the up close "bite shots"
Dry brined:
And wet brined:
Well, that's it for pictures. There you have the objective, as far as digital pictures and a computer monitor can relay them. How about the subjective? Was there a noticeable difference?
Yes!
In salt flavor, there was no difference, they were identical as far as I could tell and I like to think I have a pretty picky tongue. My conclusion here is that the recommended dry brine of 1/2tsp coarse Kosher salt is very comparable to 1/2 C table salt in 1/2 Gal water for one hour (or 1C in 1 gal.). Without figuring out the painful details of concentrations here, I can tell you the taste was identical in terms of saltiness. Both were perfect for my tastes.
The texture/juiciness? Wet brine wins! I noticed a nominal difference in the juiciness of the wet brined chops. I gave my wife a blind test as well and she too picked the wet brined chop as being slightly juicier.
This is not to say the dry brined chops were inferior, hardly! The difference was only slight, but still noticeable. If you like dry brining pork chops, by all means keep doing it. you save a tone of salt and hassle that way. But if you're interested in trying the wet brine method I describe, it does lead to a juicier chop! Keep in mind, this is at a medium, 145* temp. Well done will ruin any pork chop!
Now, there are surely flaws to this non-scientific test. It could be argued the chops I randomly selected to wet brine were more tender chops, and therefore were guaranteed to be a tad better regardless of their treatment, right? Perhaps. However, I hand-sliced them from next to each other on a whole loin, so this is possible but not very likely. Also, I could've used a panel of 50 judges with 150 different chops, blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Not scientific, but good enough to prove it to me!
I decided to do 6 chops, 3 in each method. 3 got ~1/2tsp coarse Kosher salt/lb treatment on both sides, and 3 got my usual wet brine of 1 C table salt to 1 Gal water for 1 hour. In this case I halved the brine since I was only doing 3 chops, 1/2C table salt, 1/2Gal water, 1 hr.
The dry brined chops were wrapped in plastic wrap and placed back in the fridge for approx 3 hrs, the wet brined ones were brined in cold water for ~one hour prior to cooking.
Here is how they looked after being patted dry and coarse fresh-cracked pepper was added, immediately before going on the grill. The left ones were the dry brined ones. Notice how they appear slightly more pink. This was noticeable in person too, perhaps more so.
For my grill setup I used the 2-zone with bricks method, roughly 1/3-1/2 chimney of kingsford on the 22" kettle. One chunk of ash wood for smoke. I used two Maverick 732s so I had one probe for the central grate temp and 3 chops had probes in them.
My temp spiked too high the first 15 min of the cook (345ish) and the chops were nearing 120* already. I wanted a slower cook to get more smoke, so I removed about 20 coals and stifled them in the baby Web. This got my temp to 245 which I was very happy with. I figured this left me with somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of a chimney of lit coals going. (Pictured are the coals before removing some)
The cook took maybe 45-50 min to reach 142-144 on the probed pieces (140-145 was my target "Chef temp"). This was with the first 15 min being 100* over my ideal cooker temp.
Here is one of the dry brined pieces
And here is one of the wet brined pieces
You can see there is virtually no visual difference on the outside of them, as you'd probably expect.
Now to cut into them...
Here is the dry brined one cut open
Slightly pink through out, juicy. Perfect.
Now here are the up close "bite shots"
Dry brined:
And wet brined:
Well, that's it for pictures. There you have the objective, as far as digital pictures and a computer monitor can relay them. How about the subjective? Was there a noticeable difference?
Yes!
In salt flavor, there was no difference, they were identical as far as I could tell and I like to think I have a pretty picky tongue. My conclusion here is that the recommended dry brine of 1/2tsp coarse Kosher salt is very comparable to 1/2 C table salt in 1/2 Gal water for one hour (or 1C in 1 gal.). Without figuring out the painful details of concentrations here, I can tell you the taste was identical in terms of saltiness. Both were perfect for my tastes.
The texture/juiciness? Wet brine wins! I noticed a nominal difference in the juiciness of the wet brined chops. I gave my wife a blind test as well and she too picked the wet brined chop as being slightly juicier.
This is not to say the dry brined chops were inferior, hardly! The difference was only slight, but still noticeable. If you like dry brining pork chops, by all means keep doing it. you save a tone of salt and hassle that way. But if you're interested in trying the wet brine method I describe, it does lead to a juicier chop! Keep in mind, this is at a medium, 145* temp. Well done will ruin any pork chop!
Now, there are surely flaws to this non-scientific test. It could be argued the chops I randomly selected to wet brine were more tender chops, and therefore were guaranteed to be a tad better regardless of their treatment, right? Perhaps. However, I hand-sliced them from next to each other on a whole loin, so this is possible but not very likely. Also, I could've used a panel of 50 judges with 150 different chops, blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Not scientific, but good enough to prove it to me!
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