How to Brine Pork Chops (and Every Other Cut)

Pork brine ratio and time, cut by cut

Every row below uses the same 5% salt-to-water ratio, the middle of the 3.5 to 6% range this site's meat brine calculator offers. What changes cut to cut is the time, because a thin chop takes up salt in minutes and a shoulder takes half a day. Pork is a lean meat in four of these five cuts, which is exactly why it takes so well to a wet brine; the fifth, shoulder, is the outlier and is called out as one.

Cut	Method	Time	Note
Pork chops, thin-cut (under 1 in / 2.5 cm)	Wet brine, 5%	30 minutes to 1 hour	Thin chops brine fast. Past an hour the outside turns spongy before the middle needs the salt.
Pork chops, thick-cut (1 to 2 in / 2.5 to 5 cm)	Wet brine, 5%	1.5 hours to 4 hours	Bone-in chops and anything over 1.5 in sit at the top of this range.
Pork tenderloin	Wet brine, 5%	2 hours to 4 hours	One long, thin, lean muscle. It brines evenly and does not need the full 4 hours unless it is unusually thick.
Pork loin roast	Wet brine, 5%	3 hours to 8 hours	A 3 to 5 lb boneless loin lands in the middle of this range.
Pork roast (bone-in loin, sirloin, or rib roast)	Wet brine, 5%	3 hours to 8 hours	No published chart treats these separately from a loin roast, so this site uses the same range and says so.
Pork butt/shoulder (Boston butt)	Usually dry-rubbed; 12 to 24 h if wet-brined	12 hours to 24 hours (rarely done)	Usually dry-rubbed rather than wet-brined. It is fattier than the other four cuts and spends 8 to 16 hours in a smoker or oven, which does most of the seasoning and moisture work a brine would.

Source for the figures: this site's own meat brine calculator, whose pork rows in turn sit inside the ranges independent sources publish, A Food Centric Life's salt chart (30 to 60 minutes for thin chops, 1 to 4 hours for thicker chops and tenderloin, up to 8 to 12 hours for a loin or roast) and Cook the Story's chop-specific guide (1 to 2 hours for a 1-inch chop, 30 minutes to an hour for a thin one). The shoulder figure and the note on it come from BBQ Host's pork shoulder brine guide, which treats wet-brining that cut as optional rather than standard.

Check your cut

Pick the cut and enter the weight to get the salt in grams, a spoon or cup conversion for the salt you have, and the time. It runs a smaller copy of the same formula as the meat brine calculator, which also covers chicken, beef, and lamb and lets the strength go from 3.5% to 6%.

Your pork

Cut

Sets the hours and how much water the calculator assumes.

Weight

In pounds. 0.5 to 20 lb.

Salt you have

The grams stay the same whichever you pick; only the spoons or cups change.

1.5 lb pork chops, thin-cut, 5% wet brine

35 g Diamond Crystal

about 4 1/4 tbsp

Water: 1.5 qt (1.42 L)
Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour

Dissolve the salt, chill the brine to 40°F or below, then submerge the pork.

Open the full meat brine calculator for other proteins and brine strengths from 3.5% to 6%.

Which cuts actually benefit from brining

Chops, loin, and tenderloin are the cuts where a wet brine earns its keep. All three are lean, meaning there is little intramuscular fat to keep them moist through cooking, and all three cook relatively fast, from a few minutes for a chop to under an hour for a small roast, which does not leave much time for fat to render even if there were more of it. The brine's salt draws water in and lets the muscle proteins hold onto more of it through the heat, so a brined chop or loin comes out noticeably juicier than an unbrined one cooked the same way.

Shoulder, also sold as pork butt or Boston butt, is the outlier for a different reason than the others in this list: it carries far more fat, both between the muscles and inside them, and it is almost always cooked low and slow, 8 to 16 hours at 225 to 275°F for pulled pork. That combination of fat and long cook time does the moisture-retention work a brine would otherwise do; the fat renders and self-bastes the meat as it goes. BBQ Host's guide to brining pork shoulder treats it as an optional flavor step rather than something the cut needs, and most barbecue recipes skip straight to a dry rub. If you brine a shoulder anyway, treat it like the roast row in the table above rather than skipping straight to a strong cure; there is no reason to go past 24 hours.

How long is too long

The signs are the same across every cut: the surface goes from firm to slightly springy or spongy, the color pales, and the taste shifts from seasoned to salty and faintly hammy. Thin chops show this fastest, sometimes within 90 minutes at 5%, which is why Cook the Story caps a boneless chop at 2 hours. A loin or a roast has more mass to protect it, so it takes longer to overshoot, but the ceiling on this site is 24 hours for every wet brine regardless of cut, in line with USDA guidance against extended brining.

If a batch has already gone too long, a short soak, 15 to 30 minutes in a bowl of cold fresh water, pulls some of the salt back out and can save an otherwise over-brined chop or tenderloin. It will not fully restore the texture on a piece that sat in the brine for hours past its window, so the better fix is setting a timer before the pork goes in.

How the ratio and time were set

The math is the same one this site uses everywhere: salt is computed in grams first, as a percentage of the water's weight, and only converted to spoons or cups afterward for the salt the reader actually has.

wet salt NaCl (g) = water (g) x 5%            3.5 to 6% on the full calculator
salt to weigh (g) = NaCl (g) / purity          (Redmond 0.96, Celtic grey 0.81, others 1.00)
water default     = chops and tenderloin: about 1 qt per lb, minimum 1 qt
                    loin and roast: 2 qt to 3 lb, 3 qt to 5 lb, 4 qt to 8 lb, 6 qt above
                    shoulder: same roast scaling, even though brining it is optional
time              = 30 min to 4 h for chops and tenderloin by thickness
                    3 to 8 h for loin and roast
                    12 to 24 h for shoulder if wet-brined, 24 h cap everywhere

The hours by cut match the pork rows on the meat brine calculator, which set its own ranges from destination-bbq's time chart and Cook's Illustrated's salting chart, bracketed against Morton's published brine ratios. This page adds the split between thin and thick chops and the explicit note on shoulder, both cross-checked against A Food Centric Life's salt chart and Cook the Story's chop-specific guide, plus BBQ Host's shoulder guide for the note that brining it is optional rather than standard.

What you'll need

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Kitchen scale in grams. A cup of table salt carries more than twice the salt of a cup of Diamond Crystal, so the gram figure is the one to trust.
Instant-read thermometer for the 145°F finish on chops, loin, tenderloin, and roasts.
Resealable food-grade bag or a small container, sized to the cut. A gallon zip bag holds a couple of chops or a tenderloin with almost no wasted brine.
Paper towels for patting the surface dry before it goes in the pan or on the rub, especially for a dry-rubbed shoulder.

Safety

Cook to 145°F (63°C) with at least a 3 minute rest for chops, loin, tenderloin, and roasts; ground pork needs 160°F (71°C) with no rest required (USDA FSIS).
145°F replaced the old 160°F well-done standard. USDA lowered the recommended pork temperature in 2011 after determining that 145°F followed by a 3-minute rest is just as safe.
40°F (4°C) or below in the refrigerator for the whole time the pork is brining. Never brine on the counter.
Never over 24 hours wet. Most of these cuts are done in well under that; only a shoulder, if brined at all, gets close.
Thaw fully before brining. Salt does not move into frozen meat, so a partly frozen chop or roast ends up seasoned on the outside and bland at the center.
Discard the brine once the pork comes out. It has held raw meat and should not be reused or kept for a second batch.

How this page is checked

This guide was written by Cedrick Reese for BrineCalculators.com. The ratio and the per-cut hours run through the same formula as this site's meat brine calculator, so the two pages cannot disagree with each other; that formula's pork figures were then checked against two independent recipe sources that publish their own pork brine times, A Food Centric Life's brine chart and Cook the Story's chop-specific guide, and both land inside the ranges shown here rather than outside them. The note that pork shoulder is usually dry-rubbed rather than wet-brined comes from BBQ Host's pork shoulder brine guide, which frames wet-brining that cut as an optional extra step.

The cook temperature and refrigeration figures are read directly from the USDA FSIS pages linked in the references, and the note on the 2011 change from 160°F to 145°F comes from CIDRAP's contemporaneous coverage of that USDA announcement. When any of those sources changes, the number here is meant to change with it. If a figure on this page disagrees with the current text of the source it names, the source wins; use the contact page to report it.

Frequently asked questions

How long should you brine pork chops?

Thin chops, under 1 inch, take 30 minutes to 1 hour in a 5% wet brine. Thick or bone-in chops, 1 to 2 inches, take 1.5 to 4 hours. That is the same window Cook the Story gives for a 1-inch chop (1 to 2 hours) and A Food Centric Life gives for thin chops (30 to 60 minutes) and thicker ones (1 to 4 hours). Go past 4 hours on a thick chop or past an hour on a thin one and the outside starts to turn spongy before the center has taken up much salt.

Do you need to brine pork tenderloin?

You don't need to, but it helps more than a fattier cut would, because tenderloin is lean and cooks fast, so there is little fat to keep it moist on its own. A Food Centric Life recommends 1 to 4 hours for tenderloin; this site's own meat brine calculator gives 2 to 4 hours at a 5% brine. Either way, a whole tenderloin brines evenly since it is one long, thin muscle with no thick center to catch up.

What is the ratio for a pork brine?

5% salt to water by weight is the standard on this site, which works out to about 47 g of salt per quart of water. That sits inside the range culinary sources actually use: A Food Centric Life's chart runs a stronger 6.25% (1/2 cup kosher salt in 8 cups water plus sugar), and this site's own calculator offers 3.5% for a longer soak up to 6% for a short one. A stronger brine needs less time, not more salt overall, so raising the percentage should shorten the hours, not add to them.

Can you over-brine pork chops?

Yes, and it happens faster than most people expect. Past the top of the range for the thickness, the salt keeps moving in, the outer meat turns soft and slightly spongy, and the chop tastes like ham rather than seasoned pork. Cook the Story specifically warns against going past 2 hours on a thin, boneless chop for this reason. If a batch already went too long, a 15 to 30 minute soak in cold fresh water pulls some of the salt back out, though the texture does not fully recover.

Should you brine a pork roast before smoking?

A lean roast, loin or tenderloin, benefits the same way it would in the oven: 3 to 8 hours at 5% keeps it from drying out over a long smoke. Pork butt or shoulder is a different case. It carries far more internal fat, and an 8 to 16 hour smoke at a low temperature renders that fat and bastes the meat from the inside, so most pitmasters skip the wet brine and use a dry rub instead. BBQ Host frames brining shoulder as an optional extra rather than a standard step, and gives 8 to 24 hours wet or up to 2 days dry when it is done at all.

Is brining pork shoulder or pork butt worth it?

It is optional, and most recipes skip it. The cut is fattier than a chop or a loin, and a long, low cook already keeps it moist by rendering that fat, so the main job a brine does elsewhere, adding moisture, is less needed here. If you do wet-brine a shoulder, keep it inside 24 hours at 40°F or below and pat it fully dry before the rub goes on, or the rub will not stick and the bark will not form properly.

What temperature should brined pork be cooked to?

145°F (63°C) measured in the thickest part, then rested at least 3 minutes before cutting, for chops, loin, tenderloin, and roasts. That is USDA's current standard; ground pork is different and needs 160°F (71°C) with no rest required. Brining does not change the target temperature, only how the meat gets there: a brined chop often reaches 145°F a little sooner because it is holding more water.

How long can pork brine safely stay in the refrigerator?

Up to 24 hours for any wet brine on this site, and that ceiling is rarely reached outside of a shoulder or a large roast; a thin chop is done in under an hour. The brine and the meat both need to stay at 40°F (4°C) or below for the entire time (USDA FSIS). Once the meat comes out, the brine has held raw pork and should be thrown away rather than reused or kept for a second batch.

References

Disclaimer

The information on this page is for general informational and educational purposes only. Results vary with the cut, the salt, and the refrigerator. Always follow USDA guidelines for safe food handling: keep raw pork at 40°F (4°C) or below and cook it to 145°F (63°C) with a 3-minute rest, measured with a food thermometer. BrineCalculators.com makes no warranties regarding the accuracy or suitability of this information and is not responsible for outcomes from its use. See the full disclaimer.