Sous Vide and Chicken Brine

I have been wondering about the impact a brine has on chicken when cooked sous vide.  I know the common opinion is to brine chicken breasts so they don't lose too much moisture when cooking (in a conventional manner.)  For that, I completely agree.  The difference between a chicken that spend time in a brine versus a chicken that did not is quite noticeable.  The brine produces a moister, more tender chicken breast.

However, with sous vide, the temperature is controlled to dictate what events occur to the chicken breast.  This means being able to retain moisture and tenderness through temperature alone.  So, does chicken breasts need to be put in a brine before they are sous vide?

For this, I wasn't going to take the word of someone else.  Besides, I had a chicken and it had two breasts.  Off with the skin and off with the bones!  I was going to decide this by personal experimentation.  I took one breast and placed it in a simple brine  (1 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of sugar for each gallon of water).   The other simply rested undisturbed.  When an hour had passed, I removed both breasts, placed each one in their own bag and dropped them into 140F water for two hours.  Yes, I know the minimum required time to kill bacteria on chicken breasts at 140F is 90 minutes.  I was busy at that point and I had to wait another 30 minutes before I could get down to my results show.

I pulled them out to see a rim of gelatin where the two sides of the bag met the breast.  That would normally make for some good pan sauce, but this time, I wanted to know what good, organically raised chicken breast tasted like.  Onward.  I cut each breast in thirds.  One third would be eaten as is (the true taste of the meat).  One third would be pan seared quickly while the other third would be seared under the intensity of a butane torch.

Final results:

All three pieces of breast meat that was put through the brine tasted more salty than the plain chicken.  It was most noticeable in the un-seared piece and least noticeable in the pan seared one.  I, personally, consider the un-seared breast's saltiness a bit overpowering.  The salt stands out in front of the chicken flavor when the chicken does not have the benefit of a sear.

The brine also made the meat tougher.  Comparing the two items that did not get seared, the brine made the meat a bit more firm and chewy.  Searing eliminated the difference.  Between the two un-seared breasts, I preferred the chew of the chicken put in the brine.

Then there was the pan sear versus the butane sear.  The beauty of the butane sear is that every part can be coated with a thin maillard.  Despite this, I loved the darker, more even color of a pan sear.  Yes, the pan sear is deeper, both in color and in penetration.  It thickens the layer of dense, overcooked, meat, but I like the visual appearance.

But what about moistness?  I could not discern any differences between the moisture of the breast that spent an hour in a brine versus the one that went straight to the water bath.  The "skin" of the seared meat was equally dry, while the meat of all pieces were equally moist.

Conclusion?

If I intend to use the meat for something where I will not sear it, I will skip the brine entirely.  If I will sear the meat and serve it where it stands alone, I will brine.  In all other cases, I don't think it matters enough to be an impact.  I will probably not do any brine on most other occasions because I'm lazy and don't see any reason to wasted the salt/time.