Mop with Brine??

[J Hasselberger]

I'm brining a bone-in turkey breast with the apple cider/honey brine recipe from this site. I'm going to smoke it in an 18.5 WSM tomorrow. I'm wondering if I can use some of the brine as a mop sauce. I'd plan to bring it to a boil on the stovetop and then let it cool before using it.

I also trimmed up a couple of St. Louis racks and would consider mopping them with the same.

Any thoughts?

Thanks Jeff

 

[Pat Smith]

There are a lot of really good food safety folks on the board, so I will defer to them, but I've always understood that if you bring the brine to a boil to kill any bacteria, then you can use it in the cooking process.

How about just separating some of your brine before you dunk the bird and use the reserved brine as your mop?

It may be that the salt in the brine mixture would make the brine solution too salty to use as a mop and you might want to alter the recipe for the portion to be used as a mop to cut down on the salt level - perhaps.

Pat

Pat

 

[J Hasselberger]

I believe I answered my own question last night. I boiled the brine for a good 10 minutes then let it cool. I dipped my finger in to get a taste, then poured it down the sink.

It's way too salty as a mop. I like salt as much as the next guy, but this was like licking the Bonneville Salt Flats.

I've had good success with bone-in turkey breast in the WSM without mopping, so I'll just rely on tradition.

I didn't think of the brine-as-mop scheme until after the bird was brining, but setting some aside beforehand, or making a small amount with less/no salt might be a good way to go.

Jeff

 

[Marc]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I dipped my finger in to get a taste, then poured it down the sink. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
So glad you did that. You were were completely smart from a safety aspect but in this case, more important, you knew it wasn't suitable for the mop.
Well done!