Brining and bacteria/safety

[shantytownbrown]

After brining some chicken for a dinner party today, i was wondering as i pulled it out of the brine, how much "safer" the chicken and resultant liquid was when it came to salmonella and campylobacter and other "bugs"....(mainly because i accidently splashed some brine liquid on the counter..promptly cleaned of course)

bacteria cannot live in a salt environ, right? so is a brine of 1/2 cup salt (plus 1/2 cup sugar) to 1 quart water safe enough to protect or at least lessen the risks (at least from surface handling?)?

I musta washed up 20 times while preparing this roast..!

(came out great btw...added ginger and garlic under the skin, lemon in the cavity...adapted from Ming Tsai, as seen on his show last week-PBS)

[Tri2Cook]

I musta washed up 20 times while preparing this roast..!

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Sounds like overkill on the poultry paranoia to me but whatever makes you feel safe I suppose.

[shantytownbrown]

I musta washed up 20 times while preparing this roast..!

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Sounds like overkill on the poultry paranoia to me but whatever makes you feel safe I suppose.

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admittedly..poetic exaggeration....

but i was trying to be safe...

[HKDave]

Chill. You're cooking a chicken, not handing toxic waste.

Brine is somewhat anti-bacterial, but that doesn't mean it is sterile, so as a rule it should be handled and cleaned up same as whatever uncooked product was in it.

[billieboy]

Make sure the brine is cold before you put the meat in and brine it in the fridge and you can relax. No chance of bugs growing.

Bill

[eternal]

I am brining some chicken today and I have about two liters of additional brine that I didn't need to use. I threw it in the freeze because I have plenty of freezer space. It was accidentally contaminated when I discovered one of my containers had a crack when i first poured the brine into it so there are bits of chicken in it. I figure this can't be any different from buying frozen chicken - right? I imagine anything alive would die in the freezer. Am i wrong? Can I use this brine in a few months to brine another set of chicken?

I think I'm making this too complicated

[Lisa Shock]

Freezing doesn't kill all salmonella. It will slow its growth. I wouldn't keep the brine very long, no more than a few weeks, maybe. Be super careful about any cross contamination in your freezer. When used, you'll need to take care to handle it safely and not contaminate anything else with it, and make sure that anything brined in it is cooked to 165°.

[Dakki]

Boil it.

EDIT: On second thought, pour it out. Why are you bothering with 3c worth of brine?

Edited June 25, 2011 by Dakki (log)