Do Marinades penetrate cooked meat the same as raw meat? and other Marinade Myths..

[torolover]

Let's talk Marinades and Marinade myths!

 

Do Marinades penetrate cooked meats the same amount as raw meats?

 

For Example.

 

Sample A.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, place it marinade, and let it sit in fridge for 12 hours.

Sample B.  Take out a plain precooked chicken thigh that has already been chilled, place in marinade, and let sit in fridge for 12 hours. 

 

Will the Marinade have penetrated Sample A the same amount as Sample B?  or almost the same amount?

 

 

How about this example?

 

Sample C.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, put it in marinade, and let sit in fridge for 4 hours.

Sample D.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, put it in marinade, and then Sous Vide it for 4 hours with the marinade.

 

Will the Marinade penetrate Sample C the same amount as sample  D?   or almost the same amount?

 

From what I understand Marinades can only penetrate 1/8 of inch of meat no matter how long you marinade it.  The salt in the Marinade can go much deeper.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2016 by torolover (log)

[kayb]

7 hours ago, torolover said:

Let's talk Marinades and Marinade myths!

 

Do Marinades penetrate cooked meats the same amount as raw meats?

 

For Example.

 

Sample A.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, place it marinade, and let it sit in fridge for 12 hours.

Sample B.  Take out a plain precooked chicken thigh that has already been chilled, place in marinade, and let sit in fridge for 12 hours. 

 

Will the Marinade have penetrated Sample A the same amount as Sample B?  or almost the same amount?

 

 

How about this example?

 

Sample C.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, put it in marinade, and let sit in fridge for 4 hours.

Sample D.  Take out a raw chicken thigh, put it in marinade, and then Sous Vide it for 4 hours with the marinade.

 

Will the Marinade penetrate Sample C the same amount as sample  D?   or almost the same amount?

 

From what I understand Marinades can only penetrate 1/8 of inch of meat no matter how long you marinade it.  The salt in the Marinade can go much deeper.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

I can give you only anecdotal evidence. I used to make, often, vaca frita (don't know why I haven't done so lately), which calls for boiling the flank steak, then shredding, then marinating, then frying to crisp it up. I have learned you CANNOT marinate the cooked meat longer than the recipe says, or the lime taste will be overwhelming.

 

I've also used the same technique for chicken (vaca frita de pollo). You cannot marinate it as long as you do beef, or the lime taste will be overwhelming.

 

[nickrey]

Acid in marinades breaks down the protein (think of the 'cooking' that happens with a ceviche). The salt in a marinade enters into the meat through a process of osmosis, in which the aim of the process is to reach equilibrium so if the marinade has saltier liquid than the liquid in the meat, it will penetrate to meat until equilibrium is achieved. For this reason if you have over-brined a piece of meat, you can put it in a water solution and the process of osmosis will work to draw the salt out of the meat.

 

If you leave the meat in a marinade for too long, the salt will reach equilibrium but the acid will continue to eat away at the protein, causing mushy meat.

 

The movement of elements through the meat  depends on the permeability of the barriers and the structure of the meat, including the water content. Because you have cooked the chicken in the first instance, this means there is less available liquid in the meat, which will change the rate of osmosis, although perhaps not the effect of the acid on the protein. Therefore, it will be different in at least one way.

 

In the second instance, one difference is the heat that is involved in sous vide cooking. This could have an effect on the penetration. The thing that will affect the marination most, however, is the loss of water during the cooking process. Given that many elements of the marinade will not penetrate into the meat anyway (fat for example) the penetration is limited to molecules that are small enough to hitch a lift with the salt. For example, cloves will bleed through sealed plastic bags in a sous vide so it is highly likely that their flavouring elements will penetrate with the salt through osmosis.

 

This is a bit ramble; however, to answer your question directly:  Yes the loss of water from the meat in both instances means that there will be a difference in both cases on penetration of the marinade because it changes the diffusion coefficient. Whether this is noticeable from an organoleptic perspective is a matter for experimentation.

[torolover]

Thanks for the info Nickrey!

 

Let's assume their is no acid in the Marinade, so we don't have to worry about acid eating at the meat

 

Are you saying that flavor molecules can hitch a ride with the salt?  I thought Marinades can't go beyond 1/8 of the meat no matter how long you marinade it?

 

Why do chefs like Thomas Keller marinate short ribs for 12 hours in the fridge, then braise them with the marinade for 5 hours, and then let the rest overnight?   That's over 40 hours of being in the marinade.  If a Marinade can't go beyond 1/8 inch of the meat anyways, what's the point  of all these steps to let the meat soak in the marinade for so long?

 

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by torolover (log)

[Martin Fisher]

On 10/29/2016 at 0:06 PM, torolover said:

Marinades can only penetrate 1/8 of inch of meat

 

I don't agree.

Marinade penetrates my pickled sausages, pickeled beef and venison heart, etc. etc. etc. very well.

And if you leave Cornell chicken, etc. in the marinade too long you'll surely know it!

[Martin Fisher]

11 hours ago, nickrey said:

....the acid will continue to eat away at the protein, causing mushy meat.

 

My pickled sausages, pickled heart, etc. marinades are quite acidic and I've never had the meat go mushy — even after several months.

[gfweb]

If you look at corned beef cross sections over several days of curing, you can see the red (cured) color moving inward. Somewhere in the back of my head I have the number of 1 cm/day penetration of cure into meat.

 

My cure is a rub, which is a marinade without liquid in essence.

[nickrey]

As part of the EdX science and cooking course, I used an equilibrium brine on a control piece and an extended duration brine. They were identically sized and identically cooked. The extended brine piece of meat was much mushier in texture than the control. No acid in that one, only sait, water, a bit of sugar and pink salt. This experiment indicated that time in cure affected texture. I can't see how extended time in a marinade would not do likewise, even if it were due to the salt rather than the acid. Have you tried parallel tastings of extended and non-extended marinades Martin? It is likely to be very difficult keeping texture in memory to get a valid comparison. 

[Martin Fisher]

11 hours ago, nickrey said:

Have you tried parallel tastings of extended and non-extended marinades Martin?

 

The texture does change with time but I've never had the meat go 'mushy.'

I've made dozens and dozens of batches over many years.

[btbyrd]

Whether marinades penetrate depends on what's in the marinade. Molecular size is key. Salt is relatively small compared to most flavor molecules, and this feature (along with its ionic activity) help it penetrate where other molecules cannot tread.

 

The best online (non-academic) resource I've found on testing brines and marinades is Greg Blonder's blog 'Genuine Ideas.' Here are some of the most relevant posts:

 

This post uses chemical dyes with different molecular sizes to investigate how far into meat flavor molecules can travel. 

This post investigates the rates of diffusion for various salts (table salt, curing salt, MSG) into animal proteins.

This post investigates the extent to which sugar in a brine adds flavor to the interior of meat.

 

Lots of quality reading on that site. 

[gfweb]

5 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

Whether marinades penetrate depends on what's in the marinade. Molecular size is key. Salt is relatively small compared to most flavor molecules, and this feature (along with its ionic activity) help it penetrate where other molecules cannot tread.

 

The best online (non-academic) resource I've found on testing brines and marinades is Greg Blonder's blog 'Genuine Ideas.' Here are some of the most relevant posts:

 

This post uses chemical dyes with different molecular sizes to investigate how far into meat flavor molecules can travel. 

This post investigates the rates of diffusion for various salts (table salt, curing salt, MSG) into animal proteins.

This post investigates the extent to which sugar in a brine adds flavor to the interior of meat.

 

Lots of quality reading on that site. 

Neat stuff.

Worth noting that he doesn't evaluate the effect of charge or solubility on diffusion and that gelatin is an imperfect model for meat. 

But still neat stuff.

Thanks

[nickrey]

Penetration is not linear. It does a random walk through the molecules. As such any estimation of penetration cannot be described precisely through a linear equation. 

 

Martin perhaps the term mushy was too extreme. There may also be a difference in the meats we use as most of our meat is grass fed, which has less marbling fat than your corn fed equivalent. The pieces I used in the experiment described above ve were individual pork leg muscles butchered in the European style used to make bacon. I was going to do a taste test but the texture was obviously different - the longer cured piece flaked when sliced. The other sliced like normal bacon. 

 

I would have liked to see the penetration from the web site referred to repeated with salt added to the other penetrating agents. Such a mix could possibly increase penetration through some of the other molecules hitch hiking along with the salt's osmotic process.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2016 by nickrey
Added last paragraph (log)

[Martin Fisher]

1 hour ago, nickrey said:

most of our meat is grass fed

 

 Same here.

[nickrey]

On 01/11/2016 at 10:26 AM, DiggingDogFarm said:

 

 Same here.

Well that's not it then.

[torolover]

On 10/31/2016 at 10:25 AM, btbyrd said:

Whether marinades penetrate depends on what's in the marinade. Molecular size is key. Salt is relatively small compared to most flavor molecules, and this feature (along with its ionic activity) help it penetrate where other molecules cannot tread.

 

The best online (non-academic) resource I've found on testing brines and marinades is Greg Blonder's blog 'Genuine Ideas.' Here are some of the most relevant posts:

 

This post uses chemical dyes with different molecular sizes to investigate how far into meat flavor molecules can travel. 

This post investigates the rates of diffusion for various salts (table salt, curing salt, MSG) into animal proteins.

This post investigates the extent to which sugar in a brine adds flavor to the interior of meat.

 

Lots of quality reading on that site. 

Wow great read!

 

What do you think about herbs and salt?  Do you think Herbs' flavor molecules will travel with the salt into the meat?  

 

Thomas Keller uses herbal salt for his Duck Confit.  He puts salt, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves into a spice grinder.   He grinds it up to make a green herbal salt. He covers the duck with this herbal salt and lets it sit in the fridge for 24 hours.  Then he washes off the herbal salt, and then braises it in duck fat for another 10 hours.  That means the herbs are no longer on top of the meat during the braise.

 

Did the herb molecules travel with the salt into the duck?  

If not, why not just add herbs at the end of cooking?

Edited November 6, 2016 by torolover (log)

[IndyRob]

1 hour ago, torolover said:

What do you think about herbs and salt?  Do you think Herbs flavor molecules will travel with the salt into the meat?  

 

Thomas Keller uses and herbal salt for his Duck Confit.  He puts salt, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves into a spice grinder.  It's ground up to make a green salt. He covers the duck with the herbal salt and lets it sit in the fridge for 24 hours.  Then he washes off the salt and then braises it for another 10 hours.

 

Did the herb molecules travel with the salt into the duck?  

If not, why not just add herbs at the end of cooking?

I think btbyrd is absolutely correct.  It depends on the ingredients in the marinade.  Salt may be able to take some along for the ride, but not others.  Someone would have to do a study of every combination.

 

With regard to Keller's technique, I think a lot is left unsaid.  If he braises it for another 10 hours, surely that's not in plain water.  Those aren't the only variables.  We'd have to understand curing completely - which I'm not sure anyone does.  One would presume that he does it this way because he's found that it works.

 

In science we must reserve judgement until we're absolutely certain we've accounted for everything. 

 

In cooking we must put something on the plate..

 

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by IndyRob (log)