Dry Brining, and Why It Beats Wet

Salt the bird a day before you cook it, leave it uncovered in the fridge, and do nothing else. That is the entire method. It is worth understanding why it works, because the reason explains several other things about cooking chicken as well.

Three separate things are happening

One: the salt goes in

Salt on a wet surface dissolves into the moisture already there and forms a concentrated brine. Osmotic pressure then pulls more water out of the meat, which dilutes that brine and lets it be reabsorbed — carrying the salt with it, this time into the muscle rather than sitting on top of it. After twelve hours a chicken is seasoned several millimetres deep instead of only on the surface. Salt sprinkled on at the moment of cooking never gets past the outside.

Two: the proteins change

Salt partially dissolves the myosin in muscle fibres, which loosens the protein structure and reduces how hard the fibres contract when they are heated. Less contraction means less water squeezed out during cooking. A dry-brined chicken loses noticeably less weight in the oven than an unsalted one, and the difference lands on the plate rather than in the tin.

Three: the skin dries

This is the part most people notice. After the initial dip, the surface moisture is drawn away by the dry, moving air of a fridge, and by the time you cook it the skin is taut and papery. Skin in that state browns almost immediately in a hot oven, because none of the first fifteen minutes has to be spent boiling water off it.

Why not wet brining

A wet brine — the bird submerged in salted water for hours — does the first two of those things and actively works against the third. The meat takes on water as well as salt, which does make it harder to overcook, but that water has to go somewhere during cooking and it comes out as steam. Skin sitting in its own steam does not crisp.

Wet brining also dilutes flavour. The extra weight a wet-brined bird gains is water, and water tastes of nothing. There are cases for it — very lean birds, turkey, anything that has to be held warm for a long time — but for a chicken you are roasting to eat immediately, it is a worse trade.

How much salt, and for how long

• Quantity. Roughly 1% of the bird's weight in fine salt. For a 1.6 kg chicken that is about 16 g, which is a level tablespoon. This is a seasoning amount, not a preserving amount — it does not need rinsing off and rinsing it off would waste the point.
• Time. Twelve to twenty-four hours is the useful window. Four hours produces a visible improvement in the skin but very little penetration. Past forty-eight hours the texture begins to firm up towards something cured, which is a different thing and not what you wanted.
• Uncovered. On a rack, over a plate, with air able to reach it. Covered, the moisture has nowhere to go and you get the first two effects but not the third.

Pieces are faster than whole birds because the ratio of surface to volume is higher: four hours does for thighs roughly what twelve does for a whole chicken.