Brining isbrall the rage this Thanksgiving, and while I have no doubt that it works, therebrare some considerations to take into account which makes injecting the way tobrgo.

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To brine orbrnot to brine

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Let’s take abrquick look at what brining is first. brBrining is nothing more than submerging a meat in a salinebrsolution.  Of course the recipes for thebrbrining solutions stretch far and wide, but it is a reliable way to introducebradditional moisture and flavor into meats.

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Nerd alert!brNerd alert! The following section gets a little technical.  Please feel free to skip ahead if you’re notbrinterested.  Brining works because ofbrsomething called osmosis.  That is thebrprocess in which a liquids and/or solids balance their pressures by displacingbrone another until a uniform pressure is reached. 

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So in thebrcase of a turkey, the water permeates the muscle tissue in an attempt tobrequalize the pressure.  Salt breaks down,bror softens, the water’s surface tension allowing the water to get into smallerbrspaces.  The salt also acts as abrpreservative and flavoring agent.

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Briningbrproblems

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Whilebrbrining is all well and good there are a few things to think about.  First is storage.  Brining a turkey required a very large pot atbrbest, or a very large, very thick, plastic bag at least and the whole thingbrmust be kept refrigerated.   I don’t knowbrabout you, but my refrigerator is stuffed to the edges of the shelves rightbrnow.  There is no way I have the room tobraccommodate a huge pot full of turkey and salt water. 

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Secondly,brbrining takes a long time.  Unless youbrare willing to commit at least two days to this process don’t even bother, andbrup to five days is optimal.  You seebrwhile the saline solution does its magic all by itself, it’s not quick aboutbrit.

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One morebrconsideration is that the flavor of the brine will not get into all of the meatbrtissue, at least not in 3-5 days.

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Thebrinjection connection

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There is abrsupremely better way to bring flavor to every part of thebrturkey…injecting.  Injecting is nothingbrnew to South Louisiana.  The good folksbrat Cajun Injector introduced a home injection kit over 20 years ago, butbrinjecting has been around for much longer than that.

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If you readbrthe labels of some produced hams they will say “water added”.  By law they have to disclose that.  Well how do you think they get that water inbrthere?  That’s right either by injectingbror pressure brining which is essentially the same thing.

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Injectingbrworks by immediately introducing a flavored solution directly into the musclebrtissue by way of a big ass syringe.  Oncebrthere the solution just kind of sits around until the meat is cooked.  Then once the natural liquids in the meatbrstart to move around and work their way to the surface, they take the injectingbrliquid along for the ride.

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This processbrdisperses seasoning and flavor throughout the meat like brining could only hopebrto.  What’s better is that you only needbrto inject the meat about one hour before cooking, and it takes up no morebrfridge space.  Nice right?

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To make orbrbuy the injection liquid

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Making yourbrown injection liquid is pretty tricky stuff. brYou have all sorts of things to consider like viscosities, salinebrcontents, seasoning proportions, etc. brThe truth is that there are companies that have nearly perfected thebrstuff for you.  Cajun Injector, LouisianabrSeasoning, and Tony Chachere’s are three of the most widely known and usedbrbrands.  What’s more is some even have the syringe attached to the bottle.

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So unlessbryou are experienced in experimental cooking and recipe development skip makingbryour own and just go buy some.

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It’s as easybras this: inject, season the outside, roast (or fry) as normal, serve, and sitbrback and wait for the compliments.

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HappybrThanksgiving from my family to yours. brStay safe and of course…

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Stay hungry.