Brining and osmosis

Thanks for your research and post Twofer. I'm going to post here the Wikipedia paragraph about Brining as it pertains to meat in case others are interested. It is actually a fairly complex process involving denaturation and the eventual coagulation of the resultant proteins within the cells so as to maintain the 'osmosed' liquid throughout the cooking process. I suppose we all might leave it well enough alone to know, 'it works.' And leave it at that, but I, too, find it fascinating and would like to see more empirical research on the subject.

The article reads as follows:


In cooking, brining is a process similar to marination in which meat is soaked in a salt solution (the brine) before cooking.

Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, and by allowing the cells to hold on to the water while they are cooked, via the process of denaturation. The brine surrounding the cells has a higher concentration of salt than the fluid within the cells, but the cell fluid has a higher concentration of other solutes. This leads salt ions to enter the cell via diffusion. The increased salinity of the cell fluid causes the cell to absorb water from the brine via osmosis. The salt introduced into the cell also denatures its proteins. The proteins coagulate, forming a matrix which traps water molecules and holds them during cooking. This prevents the meat from drying out, or dehydrating.

In many foods the additional salt is also desirable as a preservative. Note that kosher meats are salted during the process of koshering so they should not be brined.