Brining Venison – Add flavor and tenderize in one step.

The Briner Jr for corning and brining venison
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Use the Briner Jr to make Corned Beast!

When working with wild game, a common technique to “enhance” or “adjust” the flavor is to brine it. This is actually true with a lot of commercial meat as well, it just happens before you see it. For the most part, brining is soaking meat in a salt water/seasoning mixture for some time period. For squirrel or rabbit, it’s a day, for corning, could be a few weeks.

When brining, you need to keep the meat submerged. There are many ways to do this, but I use a container called the Briner Jr.

It’s a plastic bucket, about 10 inches tall and 9 inches in diameter. There are step grooves along the side that a plastic plate fits into that will push the meat down into the liquid and hold it there.

The lid does seal pretty well, but I like to cover the top with press-n-seal, then put the lid on. This cuts back on odors in the fridge (corning a venison roast for a week can tend to make your fridge smell like pickling spices – not bad, but kind of obnoxious after a while), and also makes it a bit more water tight. I’ll take the whole container and swirl it around once a day to “stir” the mixture.

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Easily fits in any fridge.

I’ve used this with roasts up to 7+ pounds, with room to spare. They do maker a bigger model – but it’s huge. You would need a big fridge to hold it. This smaller version fits nicely in my beer fridge. I just hate when I have to make room in the beer fridge…

After a number of uses, it may start to yellow a bit, but hey you only use it for brining. You can easily brine with containers you already have, but this is a reasonably priced container that simply makes the job easier.

Also on Venison Thursday:  Book Review: Making The Most of Your Deer

 

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