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A Fowl Brine
Brining a fowl before roasting ensures succulent meat. I’ll be roasting a 3-pound whole, butterflied chicken over charcoal tonight, and thought I should share the secret of my universal accolades, I mean, my recipe with you.
Equipment
- 5-Gallon Pail
- Kitchen Plastic Wrap
Buy a 5-Gallon Pail at your local hardware store and label it clearly as “Food Only”. Wash it out thouroughly with dish soap before each use. Use the plastic wrap to keep random crap from falling into the bucket during the resting period.
Ingredients
- 200g Salt (~1 C)
- 200g Sugar
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed
- Palmful peppercorns (4-5g), smashed
- Couple bay leaves if you’re feeling gourmet and feel like wasting two bay leaves
Directions
- Pour enough clean, fresh water unto your bucket to cover the fowl. I use 5 liters (1 gallon) for 3-4lb chickens, ducks, and anything smaller. Geese probably need 1.5 gallons and Thanksgiving turkeys need 2 gallons. The Ingredients scale linearly, so just do the arithmetic.
- Add the salt and sugar. Stir with your hand until you don’t feel it around your hand anymore. Yes, please wash your hands first.
- Add the pepper and garlic.
- Add your fowl.
- Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 4 hours.
- Roast.
I’ve skipped the parts about preparing your fowl for the brine and cooking the fowl post-brine. That’s up to you, but I recommend at least rinsing the prepared bird pre- and post-brine, and butterfly it if you are going to grill it to make sure everything inside gets cooked.
I haven’t noticed any appreciable difference brining for more than 4 hours. I’d expect the bird to start falling apart after more than 12-16 hours. (i.e. Put the bird in the brine either just as you go to work or during your lunch hour.)
