My favorite holiday is upon us; Christmas without the guilt trip to buy people new plastic things. For Thanksgiving when I cook at home, I bust out every tool in my kitchen for a few days of culinary madness. Cooking in my house for this holiday is reliably planned better than my career. I have a written down schedule with a week of shopping, thawing, and mise-en-place-ing to get ready for this. Bacon wrapped stuffing balls don’t just cook themselves.
And neither does a perfectly juicy turkey, made possible by science.
Today’s Moment of Science… in the year of our Lord 2021, brine your bird, you monster.
To get a quick rumor out of the way, tryptophan in the turkey is not what makes you drowsy on Thanksgiving. Arguing with your cousin Craig about the deep state is gonna tire you out this year (it’s always goddamn Craig). But if you’re hoping to leave the dining room table without screaming “fuck you Aunt Linda” (again) this year? Make the best turkey, eat a ton of it, and then just lie through your fucking teeth about it being the turkey that made you so tired.
What, do you think your uncle who both thinks Donald Trump is still running the government and that somehow Joe Biden is responsible for Afghanistan is going to fact check you?
So, salt.
It took a while to convince my mother to brine a turkey because she was sure it would be too salty, and you might have encountered a similar concern. But if you follow the most basic guidelines of brining, it’s pretty hard to end up with a bird that tastes like regrettable cum. Brine typically uses a cup of table salt for every gallon of fluid (about a 5-8% solution by weight), and it can take 2-4 gallons of brine depending on how many weeks after Thanksgiving you’ve decided you’re eating turkey.
Scientists aren’t in total agreement on how the brining process works. It’s a common misconception that the results from brining are due to osmosis, but this is only partially true. Osmosis deals with the movement of solvent through permeable membranes from areas of higher to lower solute concentration. Since a turkey has a high concentration of water but not that much salt, the osmotic effect means putting it into a brine causes some initial water loss as salt is diffusing in through its cell membranes.
The real brining magic is believed to happen in the interaction between salt and protein over time. It causes a degree of breakdown in the protein strands. This effect is what traps and helps it retain more moisture during cooking.
Dry brine works similarly but arguably better. The gist of it is to coat the bird in salt (and a little baking powder for extra crispy skin) and wait a while. The salt initially draws out moisture, forming somewhat of a concentrated wet brine on the surface of the meat. It’s a delicate tango of diffusion and busting protein strands while the meat more or less brines itself, absorbing the salt and water back in with it.
So… which to use?
Science and Ben Shapiro say dry is the way to go. It retains a similar amount of moisture to wet brining without as much mess and- according to my favorite food writers- without making the bird taste like “watered down bird.” If you use wet brine because you have a bunch of seasonings you throw in to infuse flavor like a marinade, science says save your water. Salt is capable of getting into the turkey this way, but spices won’t be so successful. If you’re determined to shove some pepper and garlic up the bird’s ass, I suggest lovingly violating it via compound butter instead.
This has been your Moment of Science, hoping you’re also gonna spatchcock the bird, if not for the fast cooking, then to make your Uncle Dave super uncomfortable when you say the word spatchcock.
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