re: Anyone ever get the urge to punch Alton Brown in the face?

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Powerman

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maybe your just not trying hard enough.

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even if you were using plain sugar or brown sugar, i don't think you could get it to dissolve in the water without adding heat.

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Right

Which is why you have to add sugar to sweet tea when it's hot

Otherwise you get a heterogeneous solution with all the sugar settling to the bottom

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as far as abandoning the other ingredients, that's how i come up with most of my recipes...i google it, and take the parts i like best from all of the different recipes

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I used to do that actually

And yeah, I'm definitely doing it inside

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wikipedia says the pickling salt is a finer grain and dissolves much easier and is used more for solutions that require salt

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Sorry, but I'm waiting on the sock puppets. How do I know that Alton didn't write that?

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The reasoning is quite simple. By using the straight molasses your cutting out the cane sugar in the traditional brown sugar ( white sugar mixed with molasses) used in many brines. The molasses has more flavor. Pricking salt is just plain salt with out any additives such as "iodine", the bottled water is to avoid the chlorine in tap water.

So AB is using the more flavorful molasses and leaving out the iodine and chlorine.

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I understand that, but molasses is a dominating flavor all by itself and while brown sugar has molasses in it it's not pure molasses.

The pickling salt and bottled water are watever they are, I never use table salt, only kosher or on occassion sea salt.

I guess my thing is besides pure molasses, there are no other flavors really being introduced into the meat, but probably for good reason as they wouldn't stand a chance with the pure molasses.

I can think of quite a few things that I would prefer to introduce into the meat other than molasses that would make the pork more flavorful. Fennel, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and even pepper corns which I didn't see any in the recipe of his make more sense to me in flavors I'd want to see in pork I'm roasting.

I guess I just find his recipe one dimensional and dominating, but in the end pretty bland. Nothing but a basic brine going on and a missed opportunity IMO to introduce flavor that always pair real well with pork.

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Anyone ever get the urge to punch Alton Brown in the face?

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for that fricked up clay pot smoker and his cheesecake recipe.

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t is very fine grains, making it dissolve better.

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Makes sense, but unless I'm a big pickler I don't really see the need to go to the trouble or expense of getting it in lieu of just plain old kosher salt. The reaction is the same in the end.

I brine a lot and I've seen many different recipes for brines. Pickling salt and kosher salt are interchangeable. I've used both to great effect. Most brines contain an element of sugar. This is less for flavor and more to brown the outside of the meat for color. I'm sure I've used molasses before, but it's much more expensive than brown sugar or turbinado sugar that I normally use.

I brine all my pork butts. I use a brine similar to this. The only thing I would change would be to add about (2) cups of apple cider vinegar and a table spoon of whatever spice rub I use. For the record, I can tell a big difference between a brined butt vs a non brined butt.

I brined a butt once, and it was too much. The flavor just smacked me in the face. Maybe I did it too long, but since them I just put them in the fridge overnight with some rub on them.

I chop up the whole thing with a meat clever and slowly add apple cider vinegar and rub until it taste right.

I have a Tasso ham recipe that calls for a 48-72 hour brine instead of salt curing. It's ok. Here in Alabama, there's no Tasso to compare it to.

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Makes sense, but unless I'm a big pickler I don't really see the need to go to the trouble or expense of getting it in lieu of just plain old kosher salt. The reaction is the same in the end.

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Make some sauerkraut with it! You'll be glad you did! Homemade sauerkraut is incredible!