How to deal with over-brined chops

I wouldn't worry about the look, just cook them up and see how they are.

What brine recipe did you use? 4 hours shouldn't be an issue.

Yep,if you was from the South,that's what milk gravy and biscuits and skillet fried potatoes is all about.
Folks hardly notice the chops.

It was an Alton Brown recipe:
1 cup salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon mustard powder
2 cups cider vinegar, heated
1 pound ice cubes


As you can see, he specified a two-hour brine. I figured I would cut some chops off a loin roast and brine them separately, planning to take the chops out after two hours. Unfortunately ... the best-laid plans, etc ... anyways, 4 hours later, I pulled both the chops and the loin out of the brine.

I wound up grilling the chops anyways, but they were really too salty. The loin roast was OK though.

Anyways ... lesson learned, I guess

1 cup of salt to 2 cups of liquid (plus a little more for the ice cubes) is WAY to much for a brine. It's normally 1 cup to a gallon.

The comments in the recipe say pretty much the same thing, too much salt.

Normally Alton is spot on, so there much have been something in his technique for why he used so much salt.

I would use a normal brine for a longer duration, thin chops two hours, thick chops longer.

Darn, wish I had read those comments last week ...

Did you rinse the chops thoroughly? Agree with Smokin. That's a ton of salt and rinsing may not have helped.