TDG: Eating and Drinking

[mamster]

Lunch with Jon Prinz, a dentist turned oral scientist, now at the University of Utrecht Medical School. He is well known for producing "interesting" experiments -- he once fed Heston Blumenthal custard loaded with sand to demonstrate how texture affects taste.

Ride along to Erice, Sicily, with Jack Lang and his molecular gastronomy comrades.

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[FunJohnny]

I have a question about brining: Participants at Erice were shown that brining only penetrates meat at a very slow rate. My problem with food that I brine (usually for grilling) is that while it may be moister than unbrined meat, it often remains very salty tasting even if I carefully wash the food after the brining process. I understood that given enough time the salt molecules that penetrate the meat are eventually driven out through osmotic pressure by the water molecules in the brining fluid. So given my "too salty" problem, do I need to brine longer or for less time? I usually will soak an average chicken for around 24 hours, and thick cut pork chops for several hours before cooking.

[chefdg]

What is your recipe for the brine?

[FunJohnny]

What is your recipe for the brine?

I use a standard formula -- since I don't have it with me at the moment I'll approximate: 1/2 cup kosher salt (plus a couple of teaspoons) and 1/2 cup granulated sugar to 2 qts water and I also add for flavoring a little vanilla extract and/or cracked black pepper. I also pour the 2 qts brine into enough ice to thoroughly chill the liquid in the container where the meat is being soaked.

Edited May 27, 2004 by FunJohnny (log)

[bleudauvergne]

Simply fascinating. Coincidentally this week I have been re-reading McGee's Curious Cook and taking great interest in the chapter he writes on hollandaise. There was something I wanted to try involving using egg yolks to thicken the sauce with their pre-stabilized emusifiers. Was this discussed? Thank you for a wonderful article.

Edited May 27, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[FaustianBargain]

To Jack Lang:

re mailing list: mailer-daemon rejects recipient address...failure delivery...help?

Edited May 31, 2004 by Lalitha (log)

[Samaki]

Fascinating article. I have a question about the brining experiment, though, or rather questions. I'm really surprised at how little the brine penetrated the meat, and I feel the need to replicate this experiment at home, to see it with my own eyes. Is there any chance you could divulge the strength of the brining solution, the type of meat and size of the chunks, and type of dye used?

[jackal10]

To Jack Lang:

re mailing list: mailer-daemon rejects recipient address...failure delivery...help?

I've set up www.moleculargastronomy.org which has a link to the mailing list. Actually that's all it has at present. Admission to the lsit is moderated.

If you want to join the mailing list please PM or email me with a short description of yourself and your interest, mainliy to keep random spammers out.

[jackal10]

Fascinating article. I have a question about the brining experiment, though, or rather questions. I'm really surprised at how little the brine penetrated the meat, and I feel the need to replicate this experiment at home, to see it with my own eyes. Is there any chance you could divulge the strength of the brining solution, the type of meat and size of the chunks, and type of dye used?

I think the brining experiemnts was in the context of brining pork to make ham, so the brine would be the usual strength, and the meat would be ham size.

I guess the dye was fluorscene (not edible).

However I guess this would apply to any meat.

Prof Hall's MRI results indicate very different rates of penetration along or across the muscle fibres.

[srhcb]

Fascinating article. I have a question about the brining experiment, though, or rather questions. I'm really surprised at how little the brine penetrated the meat, and I feel the need to replicate this experiment at home, to see it with my own eyes. Is there any chance you could divulge the strength of the brining solution, the type of meat and size of the chunks, and type of dye used?

I think the brining experiemnts was in the context of brining pork to make ham, so the brine would be the usual strength, and the meat would be ham size.

I guess the dye was fluorscene (not edible).

However I guess this would apply to any meat.

Prof Hall's MRI results indicate

Okay, but what does soaking ham sized chunks in a fluid of the "usual strength", (for making ham anyway), containing an inedible dye, have to do with most of us consider to be "brining"?

It sounds like an awful lot of work to establish something I would have simply stipulated to, that is; "very different rates of penetration along or across the muscle fibres."

I hope they weren't working under a government grant?

[FaustianBargain]

today(friday), we set aside duck legs with its dry marinade for duck confit that will be prepared next wednesday(thats five days away)...we were told to reduce the amount of salt drastically(well..first of all, the recipe called for way too much salt..100 gms for 4 duck legs) because it will be soaked in all that salt for over 100 hours instead of the usual 24-48. if confit=brining(is it still brining when there is no liquid involved)+cooking in fat...does it really matter if the duck legs were soaking in 100 gms of salt or 20 gms of salt...

unlike marinating using a brining solution, there is no osmosis taking place because of the lack of liquid...what exactly happens when you smear salt + spices over meat and let the salt do its 'work'?

[...tm...]

Thanks for the fun report. As a recovering scientist this kin of stuff is always right up my alley. Why accept old wives' tales when ou can do your own controlled experiments (although those old wives have some pretty good ideas.) I particularly enjoyed your description of Section 9 about the interaction of foods and liquids in the mouth. I'm a bit envious of your opportunity and I'll have to check out those food MRIs.

As for the brining-related questions I have my doubts that the acutal water, salt and sugar don't penetrate a bit deeper into the meat. Fluorescent dyes (or any type of dye) are much larger molecules than salt or water ions so they can't penetrate tissue as well. In addition, cells and tissues have molecules that normally interact with water, sodium and chloride. Plus, I don't want to admit that I'm fooling myself when I like my roast pork loin much better than an unbrined version. Although I would agree that this shows that it is fairly useless to add other flavoring agents like peppercorns to the brine, as these molecules will be larger and likely not penetrate any further than the dye did, but I do it anyway.

And my guess on the following question:

unlike marinating using a brining solution, there is no osmosis taking place because of the lack of liquid...what exactly happens when you smear salt + spices over meat and let the salt do its 'work'?

is that even without the presence of additional water there is still some mass action that is causing some water to flow from the high concentration of water (duck interior) to the low concentration of water (the salt). Salt will also flow somewhat from the high salt to the low salt environment and add some saltiness to the meat. Doing this sort of process for a long time allows the salt to penetrate further into the meat creating a gradient of saltiness from the high salt exterior to less and less salty layers the further interior you go. And the herbs transfer their flavor because the flavourful, or odorful? compounds are fat soluble and there's plenty of that to go around on a duck.