Salty brine?


 
D

Dave L.

TVWBB Pro
Last night I cooked a pork loin and brined it first as recommended from a previous post. I did a straight brine:1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 quart of water. As far as I know that's the standard ratio of salt and water. Everytime I do it the food tastes a little salty (not a lot but noticeable). We hardly use any salt at home so maybe we are sensitive to it. Is there a minimum amount of salt you can use and still get the benefit of brining?
 
Crystal size makes a difference. Morton kosher is smaller, and therefore there is more salt by weight in a quarter cup than Diamond Crystal, the brand most often used-- it's crystals are larger.
 
Todd, I made my own rub with no salt in it.

Doug, So what you are saying is if it's Morton, I should use less than 1/4 cup per 1 quart of water?
 
See what brand you used. You can reduce from the amounts I posted but only very slightly, like by 1 t of table, 1.5 t Morton or 2 t DC. More than that and you'll lose the benefits pretty much.

Since you might be more salt sensitive in terms of taste, make sure you rinse your brined foods when pulling from the brine. Cold water, brief but thorough rinse.
 
One more question then I'll let it rest. Do I use equal amounts of sugar or anything sweet or just leave the sweet out. Wouldn't I want something to balance the salt?
 
In some straight brines for pork I do, usually 50% of the salt. Never in seafood brines; fish it depends but if I do it's less than that. Usually I don't with turkey, about never with chicken.

In cures, where the salt concentration is high, I most do use some sugar. I do not find salt in brines 'harsh', the usual justification for its use. YMMV.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
Yes. The standard ts 2 T table or 3 T Morton or 4 T Diamond Crystal per quart of water. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

No wonder it was a salty. I used 1/4 cup of Morton with a quart of water.
 
Dave, I'm surprised no one asked how long did you brine the loin? Depending on how long you brined, there shouldn't be that big of a difference between a 1/4 cup and 3 T of Morton's per quart of water, especially when more than one quart is used. Like Kevin said above, make sure you rinse the loin with cold water to wash away the excess salt.

Erik
 
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