What Is Brining? How Wet and Dry Brines Work

Brining is salting food before you cook it. In a wet brine the food sits in salt water, and in a dry brine the salt goes directly on the surface with no water. The goal of both is to season the food and help lean meat hold on to its moisture, and both are done in the refrigerator for a limited time.

The calculator gives the salt, water and time for each food. A wet brine for boneless chicken breast is 5.71% salt by weight of the water for 30 min to 1 hr at the default setting. A dry brine for chicken is 0.31% to 0.62% salt by weight of the chicken, depending on the setting, for 2 hr to 1 day at the lightest.

What brining does to meat

A USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service page on brining and marinating poultry quotes Dr. Alan Sams of Texas A&M University, who says salt dissolves protein in muscle and that this makes poultry juicier, more tender and better flavored. The page covers both soaking in a salt solution and rubbing on salt without liquid. America's Test Kitchen gives a similar account for turkey: salt changes the structure of the muscle proteins, so the meat holds more of its natural juices during cooking.

AmazingRibs.com reports a test of chicken breast in which the wet-brined breast gained about 10% of its raw weight during brining and ended up 8% below its original raw weight after cooking, against 15% below for a plain breast. That is one publisher's test. It shows the direction of the effect, not a guaranteed result for every cut.

Salt also seasons, and there is an upper limit. The same AmazingRibs.com comparison of wet and dry brining gives its target salt level inside the meat as 0.5%, and calls 1.5% to 2% inside much too salty to eat. The calculator gives every food a maximum time. The guide on whether you can over-brine meat lists the maximums and the reasons the sources give.

Wet brine and dry brine

A wet brine is salt dissolved in water. The salt is measured as a percentage of the water's weight, the food is submerged, and the time runs from minutes for thin cuts to hours for whole birds. A dry brine puts the salt on the meat. The salt is measured as a percentage of the food's weight, and the meat rests in the refrigerator for hours or days.

America's Test Kitchen describes the dry method this way: salt draws liquid to the surface, dissolves in it, and the meat reabsorbs the brine. The same page says salting adds no moisture to the exterior, which means crispier skin. It says wet brining works faster and adds moisture, but needs a brining container that fits in the refrigerator and can inhibit browning.

The wet versus dry brine guide compares the two on salt amount, time, space and browning for the same chicken.

How a brine goes in practice

For a wet brine you weigh the water, weigh the salt as a percentage of that water, stir until the salt dissolves, chill the brine, submerge the food, keep it covered in the refrigerator, and take it out at the time in the guide. Then you dry the surface and discard the brine. How to make brine walks through each step with the salt-to-water math.

For a dry brine you weigh the food, weigh the salt as a percentage of the food, spread it over the surface, and refrigerate the food for the time in the guide. The sources differ on covering. For chicken, America's Test Kitchen sets the salted bird on a wire rack and wraps it in plastic if it is salted for more than 12 hours, and Milk Street leaves it uncovered. The guides for dry brined chicken and the dry brine time chart give the amount and time for each cut.

What brining is not

Brining for cooking is a short refrigerated treatment before you cook. Curing with nitrite or curing salt (as for bacon), canning and vinegar pickling are different processes. This calculator gives no amounts for them. Vegetables fermented in salt are a different use of salt, with their own percentages and warnings, and the calculator treats them separately.

Rules that apply to every brine

Wet brines are done in the refrigerator, and the brine is thrown away afterward.

A dry brine is also kept cold.

Each food also has a maximum time, and the guide for that food states it. For the two examples above, a wet brine of chicken breast at the standard strength and a dry brine of chicken at its default light strength, the calculator shows these:

The food safety guide explains where each rule comes from. Brined food contains added salt, and the FDA's sodium page is the source of the sodium limit below.

Which foods the calculator covers

The wet brine foods are chicken, turkey, pork, shrimp and fish, with a guide for each, such as the whole turkey brine guide and the shrimp brine guide. The dry brine foods are chicken, turkey, duck, steak, pork and prime rib. Vegetables fermented in salt have their own guides and a separate salt range.

Where to start

Pick the food in the calculator, enter its weight and read the salt, water and time it returns. Each number comes from the sources listed on the food's guide, and where those sources disagree, the guide says so and explains which value the calculator uses.