Brining more than one bird

[mcdaid36]

I bought a new cooler today, to use just for brining. I've never done this before and have a couple of questions:

1) Do you have to wait until the meat settles in the fridge for a few days and rigor has passed before putting the chicken in the brining solution?

2) If I have 6 chickens to brine, and the cooler only holds 2 at a time, can I let the first 2 soak for 24 hours, then take them out and put another 2 immediately into the same solution or should I make up a new fresh solution each time? (sounds like one of those math problems - if train A is going at 24 mph, how long will it take to reach train B who is traveling at 50 mph?)

3) How long can a freshly killed chicken stay in the fridge before it starts to go bad? In other words, I should get it into the freezer within "?X?" amount of days.

Thanks!!!!

 

[mxpres]

good question,I have two soaking right now,been in the brine since yesterday at 12:00,,someone please answer,i need to know also,,

 

[saddina]

As with all coking questions, results may vary:

1. No, you can put them once cleaned directly into the brine, no need to age them, but the brine must be kept cool (digital thermoter with an alarm if it goes over say 38 degrees is my tool of choice, put the probe in the brine, and let the buzzer go off, when it does top off with more ice). If you work from home like I do, you can use a 5 galon food-grade bucket, ice it, put bird in, and top off ice to keep the temp regulated for multiple birds (remember the salt lowers freezing temp, so it's easy to drop temp and let it go untill it rings for 38 and re-add ice).

2. I would make up fresh brine each pair, 2 reasons: the point of brining is to make the meat moister via salt osmosis, and the solution will "water down" each bird brined, and second, the risk of contamination from food funkies goes up, asame reason you shouldn't reuse marinade for meats.

3. I would shoot for freezer or oven within 5 days, with a 12 to 14 hour brining, but again that's me.

 

[mxpres]

thank you,,that told me exactly what I needed to know,,

 

[saddina]

I love to cook, just my thing.

According to hubby I also like telling people what to do.

Good thing I became a teacher.

 

[Deannep36]

This may sound dumb, but I'm new to this. What is brining and why do you do it? Do you have to do it?

 

[saddina]

Brining is soaking meat, mainly poultry in a salt and water solution (brine) which is used to make the meat moister during cooking, it's really useful in dry heat cooking methonds, where meat isn't cooked in water, stock or marinade (brining is similar to marinades, but lack an acid like vinagar or wine).

So for example, if you're going to roast a turkey (roasting is dry heat), you may want to brine it, before cooking to avoid the meat getting too dry, unless you like your thanksgiving dinner flooded in gravy, so that you can chew the meat (my granny is guilty of this one, we make a "pratice thanksgiving" the week before here with a good turkey, so the dry one there isn't a letdown).

If you're going to do a moist cooking method, say boiling meat off the bone to make tacos or pot pies, then brining isn't necessary, as you're cooking in salted water. Same if you marinade chicken then grill it, the marinade does the salt osmosis for you.

Do you have to? No, but I would reccommend it if you do a dry heat method: baking, roasting, grilling, etc.

 

[pdpatch]

Aging is the time between the inital butchering and freezing or cooking. The key is to let the rigomortise leave the bird, before freezing or cooking. Usually this is 24 hours to be sure it's aged ok, at a tempature below 38 to 40 degrees. Most of the rigor has subsided in poultry in about 4 hours, but the extra 20 helps a bit. The low tempature slows the growth of bateria.

You can do other thing to the meat while its aging like brining or marinading.

IN the old days brining was used to preserve meat, the most common was for ham's. but if you use table salt the iodine prevents the salt from acting as a preservitive. You should use Kosar salt if you want a to use brining as a preservitive method.

 

[Judy]

I understand from other posts here that grocery store chickens have either been brined or injected with something that works like brine.

 

[saddina]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention it should be kosher salt, I've not used Idonized salt in years, but other people still do.