Worcestershire-brined pork chops

Just for grins I recently made a basic brine (water & salt) and added a few tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce to see what would happen with a couple of pork chops. They started out pink but after a day in the brine they had taken on a leathery brown tone.


Because of the salt in the brine and sauce all I seasoned them with was some black pepper prior to grilling.


I really didn't have any idea of what to expect but they actually turned out pretty good. The brine definitely got into the meat but the sauce wasn't overpowering, and the chops were nice and moist. I might think about refining the brine into a real recipe.


Brad

I use woostie in my chicken brine - especially for wings. Mine's a quick brine, since I'm usually doing wings or BSCB. I adapated it from the Calgary wings recipe, it's basically beer, salt, woostie, hot sauce, and peppercorns.

For pork, i'd adjust to sub apple juice and water for the beer (it'll be a longer brine), remove hot sauce (unless you're going for spicy), add maybe caraway seeds, coriander seeds, and juniper berries?

Looks good, Bradley! Not trying to take away from your post, but I have a quick question..... My last brine turned out pretty salty... I placed partially frozen pork chops in a simple brine the night before and let them go to the next night. I rinsed them off before grilling, but they were still really salty. The brine was 1/4 cup salt, 1/4 cup sugar and 4 cups of water. Do you think that putting the pork chops into the brine partially frozen contributed to the saltiness?

That's a good question. I don't have a real answer but I'll take a wild guess:

If the chops were still partially frozen there was less available moisture so there was a greater inequality between the chops and the brine, and more brine was absorbed into the meat than would've been if the meat was fully thawed. But again, that's just a guess...

Brad

Dyal, my brine , 1/4 cup Kosher salt , 1/4 sugar & 4 cups water is just a little less salty than yours.
Partially frozen doesn't matter , the meat thawed in the salt solution very quickly.
Was the meat " ENHANCED", lots of pork is?

lostarrow, nope, I got a fresh cut pork loin from Sams awhile back. Only thing I can think of is the sauce that I used. Probably meant for dipping and not grilling.

Interesting chops Brad. I don,t think frozen had anything to do with the saltiness. If anything, I'd say it would keep the meat from absorbing as much salt. I am making a pork chop recipe this weekend and the brine time is 4 hours total, not overnight. I would guess the time was the contributing factor to the saltiness.

Jim