Need help with solution percent

[FeChef]

I bought pure Bromelain awhile back and wanted to try using it as an injection for tough meat tenderization. I found an article that tested concentration levels of 0.10 , 0.25 , 0.50 , and 1.0%. In the study even as low as 0.10% reduced the hardness by more then half. So i went with what i "thought" was 0.10%. Needless to say, i must have calculated wrong lol. 

 

I was always under the impression that a brine solution of 50g salt and 1000 ml was 5%. So i thought mixing 1000 ml with 1g would equal 0.10%. But having tried this i ended up with mush. 

 

So i went online and decided to use a weight/volume percent calculator and its telling me in order to achieve 0.10% i need to mix 0.1g ( not sure if my scale can even measure that low ) with 10,000 ml. This can't be right?

[AlaMoi]

assume water is 1 g per cc/ml.....

 

no, it's not "right"

 

1 gram of anything in 1,000 g of water = 1 divided by 1,000 = 0.001 = 0.1%

[btbyrd]

Exogenous enzymatic tenderization almost always leads to mush.

[gfweb]

23 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

Exogenous enzymatic tenderization almost always leads to mush.

 

Esp if you sous vide it.

I recall destroying a brisket that was papain-treated by SV at about 150F.  Turns out that the temp optimum for papain is about 150....

[btbyrd]

There are few ingredients that you really need to measure with this type of accuracy and precision, but when you want to use them (or run some tests with them) it pays to be able to weigh them properly. If you do any work at all with hydrocolloids, it's worthwhile to buy a cheap pocket "drug" scale that's accurate to a hundredth of a gram. You can get one on Amazon for around $15. I have 2 scales in my kitchen... a big scale that can measure in grams and a pocket 100g scale that does the hundredth-of-a-gram thing. That's all (almost) anyone could ever need. Perfect for your bromelain experiments!

 

As for bromelain, part of me wants to skip the middleman and just jaccard the meat and then inject it with a pineapple brine. And then don't let it sit for too long. And don't sous vide it.

[FeChef]

On 8/5/2023 at 3:16 PM, AlaMoi said:

assume water is 1 g per cc/ml.....

 

no, it's not "right"

 

1 gram of anything in 1,000 g of water = 1 divided by 1,000 = 0.001 = 0.1%

I thought it wasn't right. But my original measurments were right then? I will have to dilute even further then because it was still mush even at 0.1% 

This was injected every 1/2 inch in a checkerboard pattern, then vacuum tumbled for 30 minutes @ 29 Hg. I will say, such high vacuum might also contribute to over tenderizing. I will try just injecting and do an equalibrium brine next time, but i will still reduce the concentration by 1/2 my original concentration.

 

What would 1g Bromelain in 2000g water be? 0.05% ?

[FlashJack]

23 hours ago, FeChef said:

What would 1g Bromelain in 2000g water be? 0.05% ?

Yes.

 

1% = 1 in 100

0.1% = 1 in a 1000

0.05% = half of 1 in 1000; 1 in 2000.

 

Maths hurts.

[haresfur]

On 8/6/2023 at 6:02 AM, btbyrd said:

There are few ingredients that you really need to measure with this type of accuracy and precision, but when you want to use them (or run some tests with them) it pays to be able to weigh them properly. If you do any work at all with hydrocolloids, it's worthwhile to buy a cheap pocket "drug" scale that's accurate to a hundredth of a gram. You can get one on Amazon for around $15. I have 2 scales in my kitchen... a big scale that can measure in grams and a pocket 100g scale that does the hundredth-of-a-gram thing. That's all (almost) anyone could ever need. Perfect for your bromelain experiments!

 

As for bromelain, part of me wants to skip the middleman and just jaccard the meat and then inject it with a pineapple brine. And then don't let it sit for too long. And don't sous vide it.

 

Or you can do a serial dilution.

 

The first thing to do is to ditch the volume measurements completely. Weigh out, say 10 g into a container and add water until it weighs 1000 g. Note this isn't exactly the same as adding 1000 L water but is 1 %. Then 10 g of this contains 0.1 g of bromelain so weigh that amount into another container and add water until the weight is 100 g - 0.1 g/100g = 0.1%.

 

Then you can use the rest of the first stock solution to try different percentages.

 

Better check my maths first, though.

[C. sapidus]

Couple of things to consider:

 

1. For lab work concentrations are usually either weight:volume (diluting a solid into a solvent) or volume:volume (diluting a liquid into a liquid). Perhaps the food world does things differently than biomedical laboratories, though.

 

2. If the densities are around 1, there isn't a huge difference between weight:volume and volume:volume.

 

3. Typically you add the solute (measured by weight or volume) and then dilute to the final desired volume. Otherwise there will be slight errors due to volume changes when one thing dissolves into another.

 

4. If you are diluting weight:weight, density becomes relevant. For example, ethanol has a density of 0.79. Consequently, 100ml of ethanol will weigh 79 grams. So if the instructions are not clear on how the dilution is to be done, you may be off by 20% or more.

 

I hope that helps. 

[haresfur]

Your post is absolutely correct. There are whole levels of complexities in mixing stuff that may or may not matter in practice. Like you pointed out, mixing two liquids can change the total volume - if I recall the example in my chem class was mixing acetic acid with water and ending up with a smaller volume due to delta-V of mixing (it's thermodynamics, it's the law). But most people don't have volumetric flasks at home.

 

The people in the know in the food world have taken to doing more by weight for solids because the amount of, say, flour in a cup can vary a lot. But most of the liquids used are pretty close to a density of 1 or are at least consistent in their density so recipes work using volume. Well, that is except my Australian measuring cups and spoons are different from American ones.

 

So that's one reason I recommend weighing everything in this instance - it's easier to calculate exactly what you are doing correctly. For example, in the original post, adding 1 g of stuff to 1000 mL water will give you a total of 1001 g so not exactly 0.1%. Probably doesn't matter, but it's easy enough to get right when you stick to weight. The other reason is that it is much easier to weigh things precisely than to measure volumes precisely - the uncertainty in volumetric glassware is much higher than the uncertainty in scales for a given range.

 

Don't get me started on people who talk about % without specifying weight:weight or volume:volume.

[FeChef]

To make things even more confusing, I just noticed my Bromelain has a concentration of 2400 GDU, and after searching the study i based my tests on, used a concentration of 1200 GDU. So i believe my original test would have been 0.2% instead of what i thought was 0.1%. I still think even 0.1% is too high, so now i need to dilute 4x instead of 2x. *sigh*

[FeChef]

Testing a pound of London Broil for beef jerky. 3/8 thickness sliced with the grain. 0.05% ( by my sketchy calculations ) vacuumed ( no tumble ) 29.5 Hg held for 30 minutes. Then into fridge overnight. Plan to dehydrate in my APO 135F dry bulb no steam for 6 hours ( will adjust accordingly )

 

Going for 30%- 40% moisture loss.

Edited August 11, 2023 by FeChef (log)

[FeChef]

0.05% was the magic number. Noticeably more tender, but still had chew. vacuumed for 90 minutes total, and overnight for 12 hours, then 6 hours in the APO.