Replace half of the brine with ice

Whether you intend to fry it big turkey or a cauliflower head, a good brine ensures that the final product is fragile, moist and fragrant throughout. Simple brines are a little more than sugar, salt and water, but peppercorns, citrus peel, bay leaves and all sorts of plant parts can be used to make things more interesting. A universal truth about brine, however, is that you need to heat the liquid to get those crystalline solids in solution.

If your brine is meant for meat, then it must be completely cooled before the pork chop, turkey breast or shrimp strip is dipped in those salty, sugary waters. You can wait for this to happen or you can use a little ice.

Of course, you can’t just throw a pile of ice in brine; which will throw away your proportions and dilute your flavors. Instead, divide the amount of water required by your recipe in half, use that to dissolve the salt and sugar, then add the rest of the water in the form of ice. The ice will cool the brine as it melts, bringing it to the right temperature and volume.

– I’m really sorry about that – you’ll have to do a little math to calculate the correct amount of ice. The water expands as it freezes, which means that a cup of ice is not the same as a cup of liquid water. Fortunately, one milliliter of water weighs one gram at room temperature, so all you have to do is count your milliliters, convert to grams, and weigh as many grams of ice. Let’s use this very simple brine recipe to illustrate:

Basic brine from myrecipes:

Ingredient:

• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 liters of cold water
• 3 bay leaves

The recipe instructs you to add all the ingredients to the pot and heat to dissolve the sugar and salt, then wait for the brine to cool completely before continuing. To speed up the process with ice, add salt, sugar and leaves to the pot with a single liter of water and heat them, dissolving everything except the leaves.

Then add the ice. A liter of water weighs 946 grams, so he grabs a bag of ice and weighs 946 grams of ice. Add this to the brine, stir to dissolve and cool, and dip the meat. No need to wait.