The process of treating a food with either a high concentration of salt or a liquid solution with a high concentration of a type of salt, also known as a brine. Truth be told, the former definition (a high concentration rather than a solution) is rarely used outside of culinary spaces. Still I thought it important to at least mention.

There are a variety of reasons why you might go with this method in particular. Chief among them is that the method of brining acts as a method of food preservation. To be clear, brining does not necessarily kill microbes/bacteria; it can, but the main method by which it preserves food is by inhibiting growth and or continued growth on foods that have been treated with a brine. By relying upon principles of osmosis, equilibrium is encouraged, thus drawing out water from the food being treated (this is most easily applicable to foods being treated with a wet brine). Brines traditionally have salt ratios of 3-10%, but this is dependent upon what food is being treated. For example, some brine recipes for fish encourage a 20% salt ratio. As such, it is difficult to make blanket statements in an overview of the concept.

Brines are typically made with salts like sodium chloride or calcium chloride. However, other types of salts can be used. Please make sure that they are edible though. It is a more common mistake than you might think.

Brines are also used to develop flavors. In addition to salt, you may want to add different types of aromatics like rosemary, fennel, and many more. Depending on the food being treated, you may want to add caramel and or brown sugar to your brine; doing so can add a sweet yet smoky flavor to your dish. Again, feel free to get a bit creative. Just make sure that it’s safe.

The last reason that you may want to brine a food during preparation is that it will make your food, usually a meat product, more tender. Most active ingredients in brines (salt, honey, etc.) denature proteins through a variety of processes, resulting in a more tender product.

I’ve mostly been talking about wet brines. The key distinction between these and dry brines is the presence of liquid. Some, such as the writer of this article here, think that wet brines are best used on leaner cuts of meat while dry brines are better suited to fattier cuts. Of course, some just swear that dry brines are better in general. It’s honestly an interesting topic for discourse, so you may just want to look around on your own.

Now, the last item that I would like to talk about is the key distinction between the process of brining, salting, pickling, and curing. Wet brines are meant to add moisture, resulting in a food that is flavorful, preserved, and still juicy. The goal here is to avoid preservation via fermentation. Pickling is a process of preservation that relies upon exclusively upon either acid based preservation or fermentation based preservation. So, technically speaking, pickling can constitute a form of brining. However, not all brining methods are forms of pickling.

As for salting, the jury is somewhat out on the matter. The general consensus is that the distinction comes from the amount of time. Salting is just adding an ingredient to food while dry brines make use of the same ingredient with the goal of coating the food with said salt for an extended period of time.

As for how this relates to curing, there is even less consensus. Some consider brining to be a form of curing. However, general use cases for the term curing imply that the goal, usually, with curing is long term storage that may enhance flavor.

Normally, I would try to address when brining came into vogue. However, given that brining can and does occur in nature, it would be rather difficult to get a single year attached to the methodology. Archeological evidence indicate humans have been drying foods as far back as 12,000 BCE, but modern usage of curing techniques are usually placed in the 1800s in Eurocentric frameworks.