Get to Know Your Chickens
- Broilers: Chickens 6 to 8 weeks old and weighing about 2 1/2 pounds
- Fryers: Chickens 6 to 8 weeks old and weighing 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pounds
- Roasters: Chickens less than 8 months old and weighing 3 1/2 to 5 pounds
- Stewing Chickens: Chickens (usually hens) over 10 months old and weighing 5 to 7 pounds
- Capons: Castrated males that weigh 6 to 8 pounds
- Cock/Rooster: Male chickens over 10 months old weighing 6 to 8 pounds
IMHO Smaller is better, but that's just me, however, you can't find any small chickens to cook, unless you buy a Rotisserie chicken at the grocery stores. How come they get all the small ones?
They place massive standing production orders for 'em, they're grown and processed to "spec". So most of the production goes there.
Think abut the "notorious" Costco chickens, a loss leader, but they're the single biggest consumer, I think. Although I do suspect there's left-over and small production too. The (cooked) rotisserie chickens from anywhere are basically guaranteed to be injected full of sodium and flavor enhancers though.
Also, let's not forget about Tyson's recent rooster fiasco:
Chickens are in short supply. Part of the blame goes to Tyson's roosters.
www.cnn.com
Yes, Steelhead is my favorite. Try just a light shaking of salt.
OK the whole brining thing piqued my curiosity and I discovered it's not as "bad" as I thought.
The actual principal is that the salt, whether dry or through brining, "untwists" protein strands and allows 'em to absorb more water, although for sure there is some effect of sodium being absorbed also being responsible for some water retention. But properly brined cuts actually weigh more after brining, demonstrating that the cut
has gained water.
Still, don't know how much sodium is also retained.
I suspect there is some sort of formula out there that allows one to closely estimate how much sodium is in the finished cut, before smoking/cooking.
I'd be curious what the final sodium contents could be. And hell while we're at it might as well check the CBD's too.
Anyway, end result is the "untwisted" proteins don't "lock" and dry out out and get tough during the heat of cooking, why those rotisserie chickens are
always so nice and juicy.
Then I wondered if perhaps the smoking process itself might also do the same thing, through slow evaporation. Don't know, but I do recall some pretty dry tough jerky in my time.
And when I think of some of the smoked salmon I've seen (like the "candy"), it's always insane sodium content, like 900mg/2oz IIRC, but who knows, maybe they do it that way on purpose and it could be way lower? (Like you said, the salmon seems salty enough and its natural content is about 18mg/oz except sockeye which is kinda high at about 24. Lake trout's a salmonidae so doubt it'd be any higher than that.)
Also didn't realize just how big lake trout were 'til I looked 'em up. Now I get why overnight brining wasn't overkill.
Anyway, just "food for thought".
@dreadnut : Congrats on the successful shakedown cruise of the new smoker.