Memorial Day BBQ 2025: brisket and turkey breast dry brining vs wet brining plus rub. Threw on some corn for the hell of it.
It’s a bit clammy in upstate NY, but tradition demands that I pull out the Weber Bullet for the first smoke of the summer on Memorial Day. I have a nice brisket I will cook in my usual manner: rubbed with salt, refrigerated overnight, then rubbed with brown sugar mixed with pepper before it goes on the grill. I’ll also smoke a turkey breast I have tucked away; this will be dry brined overnight as well, then rubbed with a Salt Lick blend (salt, pepper, sugar, spices) I was gifted by my sister.
What’s the difference between dry brining and wet brining, and between brining and a rub? In wet brining the protein is soaked overnight in water to which a large amount of salt and sugar has been added; I use a 3:1 ratio and add some bay leaves, juniper berries and garlic. In dry brining the salt/sugar mix is rubbed into every available surface of the bird, including under the skin.
Two Thanksgivings ago I dry brined my turkey out of necessity; the bird traveled across the country with me in a suitcase but not the bucket I use for wet brining. I failed to report back, but the bird turned out just fine: crisp flavorful skin and tender juicy meat. Thanksgiving 2024 was an unsettling time, so I went back to wet brining for comfort’s sake. But I expect I will be dry brining from now on.
The main reason is laid out in this Serious Eats article: dry brining is just easier. No solution to mix up, no bucket to clean afterward. (There’s also the need to keep the turkey at a food safe temperature overnight, something that’s rarely a problem in Saratoga Springs with a bucket left on the porch in November.) Serious Eats also claims a wet brined turkey can become water logged with diluted flavor, something I’ve never encountered in brining my turkey every year since SFGate published the Chez Panisse brining recipe in 1999. But if I can get equivalent results with dry brining (and maybe tuck a few juniper berries and bay leaves under the skin), why not?
As to the brisket, dry brining is what they do at Snow’s so I will continue to do the same though in recent years I have saved the pepper to be added to the rub. A rub (as we define it anyway) is applied before the meat goes on the fire. It seasons and tightens the outer surface and maybe flavors the first half inch inside, and also flavors the fat drippings which fall onto the coals. Nothing wrong with any of these things but it’s a different reaction than brining of either kind.
And if you were wondering if the irrepressible Kenji has done his own brine experiment, of course he has … including a chicken breast soaked in plain water as a control. The plain-water breast ended up the driest of the bunch, with nothing added but maybe a touch of salmonella in the absence of a cure. Don’t try this at home.
