Brining-Moist & Tender or Wet & Soft ?

Tom
I have to agree with you about brinning chicken if it is done for too long or with too strong a brine.
Brinning can introduce flavor during the process but I see brinning times that seem very long and the conditions discussed in those post can be the results.
Beef and pork I think brinning is best used to cure rather than trying to introduce moisture and flavor, injecting is a better method without creating a ham effect.
jim

Moist & Tender = Good
Wet & Soggy = Bad

The latter is a result of improper technique with brining -- my opinion. Too long or too strong and the protein breaks down to the point of mush. Obviously the cooks aren't paying attention or they wouldn't turn in this stuff.

A lot of them will take it off a little early, sauce them up and finish on the grill (to get the sauce to a certain consistency).

Interesting points Tom.

Do any of you think the temperature of the brine may have an effect on texture? I do.

Hey Andi: Would you care to elaborate? If so, I'll tell my take on brine temperature.

As to the texture problems, I wonder if some folks are brining pork or chicken that's already been "enhanced" at the factory. Some commercial enhancers contain sodium phosphate in addition to or instead of salt. I think phosphate causes the meat to hold on to more water, which might give a wet or mushy character.

Joe Ames sells a phosphate product for making sausage; perhaps he'd have some more info.

Like Tom, I too have tried brining many things. The same results.

I figure that most of these meats need no extra moisture if cooked right....ribs are always tender and moist, chicken is very moist when taking off the grill, but the timing has to be almost perfect. There tends to be a 5 minute window when I do split breasts.

The only thing I now brine on a regular basis is pork loin. I brine for a max of 4 hours the day before, then rub and let sit overnight.

This has produced the best loins I have made in many years. These loins I get from Sam's Club and they are not enhanced.

But again, the best thing to do is to experiment. Especially when it comes to the brine mixture...you need just enough salt to make the osmosis work, but not too much to make the meat overly salty.

Andi, you asked about temp of the brine. I'm sure our food scientist friends can jump in and talk but, I'm not sure where you're aiming? I do my brines and keep below 40 so I'm not in the danger zone. Keeping that tenderquick stuff out of the brines anymore.

Did you have something specific in mind. For marinades, I've found if you do them are room temp vs. refrigerator, the meat seems to absorb it more. Probably something about the meat molescules lining up with the universe correctly at room temp vs. slowed down in a refrigerator.

Temperature, salt and phosphates.
Regarding moisture in meat.. IMHO, the "drip-loss" and fat content are what makes cooked meat "juicy".
From the time an animal is slaughtered until you cook it, the natual juices/water continues to be pushed out of the meat by the muscle contraction (rigor). This is caused by the muscle using up phosphorus and not replacing it, causing the muscle to contract. When adding a brine containing phosphates, the phosphorus is replaced and the muscle expands, allowing it to again hold the moisture that was lost. (No more than was there when the animal was live.).
Another factor is the salt-soluble protein Myosin. Once extracted by the salt it can encapsulate water and fat and retain them in the cooked meat. Myosin behaves much differently at colder temperatures, 40 F. or colder, better around 26 F.

My 2

Joe

I brine chicken only whole chicken about 12 to18 hrs and it comes out great. It is more forgiving to overcooking.I add flavers ot the brine that adds to the chicken that would be harder to do any other way.But you have to be careful not to over brine.

Good One, Smokin'!!!!! I have been mulling the answer for days and YOU came up with it!

My thought exactamundo!

I've experimented with using hot brines, but haven't really concluded anything. Plus, these experiments were before I had a smoker, so were more geared toward the challenges of grilling.

Anyhow, what I did was to mix up the brine and heat to boiling. Salt and sugar-type ingredients of course dissolve more readily and more flavor gets extracted from spices into the brine. Then I'd just pour the boiling brine over the meat - sometimes even when it was frozen. A couple things happen: The outside surface of the meat gets partially cooked, and the resulting mixture winds up somewhere around room temperature.

For chicken, the partial cooking sort of "tightens" the skin and seems to give it a less tough, more crispy texture when grilled. For pork or beef, some fat gets melted and the outside turns beige or grey. The grilled surface doesn't seem affected much. It seemed as though the end result was more juicy when compared with cold-brined, and more flavored, but I hadn't experimented enough to be absolutely sure.

Some will point out that this is an unsafe practice. I'll jump the gun by giving my arguments why it may not be (plus the fact that I'm still alive to give them):

1. I immediately refrigerate.
2. Especially when using frozen meat, the final temperature is not that warm.
3. The boiling brine probably kills some surface bacteria, and that's where most bacteria are hanging out.
4. Boiling the spices kills any bacteria in them.

It's not the bacteria in the brine I'm worried about, but the bacteria in the meat.

I personally don't recommend putting any meat in a warm or hot brine. Just remember the 40 to 140 temp zone. I'd just refrigerate the brine first, to get it's temp lower. I agree with you that the outside meat get's partially cooked, and I don't like that. I want the meat as cold as possible to give it the maximum time to absorb smoke. You way sounds like it makes the temp of the meat start rising before it would get to the grill/smoker.

As for giving the chicken a "less tough" I don't think that's the warm brine doing that, but the brine itself. But it's an interesting thought. Warm vs. Cold brine, interesting thought, sounds like you did some good experiments.

I just try to avoid that "Danger Zone" like the Plague Bacteria.

Obviously you're still alive and with us

Appreciate the through input.


Smokin'

First - thanks, Joe, for the comments on phosphates. I was wrongly thinking they acted as a wetting agent to cause more water to be "held".

An article on myosin for those interested: Food Product Design Their archive seems pretty good if you've got a lot of time on your hands.

Second - Smokin': I poured the boiling brine over the meat, then refrigerated the mixture for several hours, so the meat was cold when I began cooking, which is actually the opposite of what's usually recommended for grilling. It seems to be generally agreed that when dealing with whole cuts of meat, bacteria is found primarily on the outside.

Finally, it might be worth worrying about bacteria in spices, but maybe not. A call to Penzey's, where I buy my spices & herbs, verified that they don't irradiate or pasteurize their products. Some companies do, and they'll argue that it's necessary. However, I haven't found a good reference on this. In fact, there's lots of articles on how spices kill bacteria and fungi.

In any event, I'd agree that brining can produce added juiciness. My experiment was more concerned with whether or not the hot brine gave even more, and I think it might. I should try the hot brined chicken in the smoker to see if it produces a bit less rubbery skin.

TJR-

It would seem to me that when you pour the boiling brine over your meat it results in a cooked surface as you mentioned.

This would result in a barrier to the brining process and leave a salty exterior surface. Sort of self-defeating if you think about it.

Bobby Que - one might think it would work that way, but that's not what happened. Probably the thickness of the cooked part, and its cookedness, is not all that much. Plus, I don't know that a cooked layer is necessarily a barrier to the brine. Seems just as likely that cooking makes it more absorbent.

Best way to find out would be to try it yourself! My problem in drawing very precise conclusions from experiments like this is that I can't do the quantity of tests that would be required, because we just don't eat that much, especially of the same thing, to allow good comparisons. But I will eventually test the process on chicken for skin quality, as I've done enough chickens the ordinary way to know the texture of the skin.

TJR-

Uhh- OK!

But, I don't think I will try your experiment myself.