Cures and Brines

Curing and brining are older than the smoker itself — salt-table preservation from before anyone had ice, now used for flavour and moisture as much as for keeping food safe. A cure draws moisture out with salt (and often curing salt for safe home bacon); a brine pushes it back in with a salted, flavoured liquid. This is the shelf for anything that needs help holding onto moisture before a long cook — whole turkeys and chicken ahead of the roasting pan or smoker, pork belly bound for home-cured bacon, and competition-style poultry that needs an injected head start.

Start with Butchers Axe's Chicken Injection for competition-grade moisture from the inside out, Meat Church's T-Bird's Chicken Injection for a proper wet poultry brine, or Coast N Smoke's Bacon Cure if you're curing your own pork belly at home.

The range runs genuinely both ways — wet brines and injections built for the fridge overnight, and dry curing-salt mixes built for the curing chamber over days — so whichever method suits your kitchen and your timeline, there's a real option here. Coast N Smoke's cure alone turns one pack into up to 18kg of home-cured bacon, and both it and Meat Church's injection are gluten free. Cured right, brined deep, ready for the smoker.

Explore more: our injections and brines and pickles collections.