Science of braising

[Shalmanese]

I thought I had braising figured out, you suspend meat in a liquid at a temperature such that the middle stays at medium rare for long enough that the collagen turns to gelatin. Whan you end up with is tender meat because the collagen is gone and moist meat because none of the water has been squeezed out. Indeed, that's what I've been doing for some time and it's produced excellent results.

But while trying a Beef Bourguignon from egullet, I had crappy supermarket round eye (hey, it was cheap) that were way too thin because apparently uneducated people like buying things that look like steak even though you can't cook it like steak. By the time in was browned, the meat inside was an inedible well done.

Not wanting to waste it, I proceeded ahead with the recipe and, for some bizarre reason, around the 2 hour mark, the beef suddenly turned from dry and inedible to fall apart tender all within the span of 20 minutes or so. Now, this does not fit with my understanding of braising. It always seemed to me that meat which was ruined stayed ruined yet apparently this is not so.

Got any suggestions why?

[culinary bear]

How much of the cooking wine went into the braising pot as opposed to your glass? :)

I've had a similar thing happen; I shall mull it over and see if my brain copes.

[RETREVR]

Shal- I always end up on the same threads as you. We must have common interests.

You are part right and part wrong.

What do you mean by "suspend".

When I braise I add liquid 3/4 of the way up the side of the meat. If you are covering it, then you are stewing more so than braising.

If you mean "suspend" as in to keep at a temperature appropriate to medium rare, then that is not really true. Braises may be done a moderate temperature. However, even in a 200'f oven, your cooking time will bring the cut well above a temperature consistent with medium rare.

You are on the right track about breaking down the collagen though.

Last week, I had a gig coming up at a barrel race. I had a bunch of eye of round in the freezer with no real use for it. I decided to make BBQ sandwiches with it, knowing that I had a battle on my hands with this cut. The cut really doesn't have enough fat and connective tissue on it to compete with other more appropriate cuts. I cooked it regardless. I actually roasted it, sliced it, and then simmered it in sauce for ....oh....about a day and a half. If eventually broke down and was ok.

I don't think it is true that the meat juices are staying in the meat in a braise. They are cooking out, mingling with the braising liquid and then being sucked back into the cut...along with all the flavor of the braising liquid.

I need to go back a read some stuff on real BBQ. Those guy are able to breakdown a brisket using dry low heat.

[Shalmanese]

Well, I don't quite know what is going on then because my meat consistently comes out with a tinge of pink in the middle when I cook it in my normal braise/stew manner. I know theoretically that the meat should get well above Med-Rare temps but it doesn't seem to be happening. Perhaps next time, I'll try stick a thermometer in a large chunk of meat and see what temps in reaches.

I know technically that a stew means more liquid than meat and braise means more meat than liquid but does it actually affect the end outcome? I always assumed that the reason for the small amount of liquid was for better reduction into a sauce.

So which of these situations would keep meat edible:

Hard boil for 24 hours

Hard boil for 2 hours, simmer for 24 hours

simmer for 24 hours, hard boil for 2 hours

[MobyP]

The first thing you should do is read Jack Lang's science class on meat.

Medium rare is in the 130-140 range, and with braising - as someone pointed out above - you're dealing in the sub-200F range. I noticed too that when you cut into a piece of braised meat (when cold), you find some which is slightly pink. This is probably the part has remained both unoxidised, and also the wine stock mixture hasn't permeated that far. But it isn't medium rare, under any circumstances.

The reason boot leather meat suddenly becomes tender is because the collagen surrounding the muscle strands gelatinizes - a state between solid and liquid. This is an intermediate state though, and if you keep cooking, the collagen will drain out, leaving dry but stringy meat. Some cook short ribs for 3-5 hours at 275 (Keller), and others at 190 for 7-9 hours (Blumenthal). The point is to gelatinize the collagen, not how you do it.

A quote from Jack's class:

Collagen starts to turn into gelatin and dissolve at around 60C/140F. This process (and also the fat melting) takes energy. Experienced BBQ cooks know that during the long slow smoking of brisket there is a "temperature stall" at around 72C/165F, where the internal temperature, instead of continuing to climb, stays steady for a long time before increasing again. That is the period the collagen is converting to gelatin. Once the temperature starts to climb again the conversion is complete, and the meat is tender. Any more cooking tends to dry the meat without improving tenderness.

Heston Blumenthal says that softening the collagen also improves even normally tender cuts of meat, such as the roast beef above. He suggests holding the temperature of the beef for up to 10 hours at 55C/130F (longer will start to generate ‘off’ flavors) to make beef that is "unbelievably tender."

It doesn't really matter if you cover the meat by a third (Judy Rogers) or completely (Daniel Boulud). The cops won't kick down your door and bust you on it. The only issue is how much work you want to put into cleaning up your sauce afterwords - straining, removing the veg, and reducing the liquid to a sauce consistency.

Edited January 20, 2005 by MobyP (log)

[Shalmanese]

Okay, it was pink when hot but why does wet cooking lead a piece of well-done meat to be pink while dry cooking makes it grey? So your saying that excess simmering would have meant my meat just fell apart?

[MobyP]

As to the first part, I'm not sure.

The second part - yes. If the temperature was sufficient, eventually the collagen would drain away, leaving the meat dry and stringy, and various other chemical reactions would take place (Jack - where are you!).

[MobyP]

What I want to know - as I have yet to do this - is: can you measure the 165F 'temperature stall' in something like short ribs with a probe thermometer? Are they perfectly done when they reach 170F? Are they better at 168F? And is it a meat-wide temperature, or only at the centre? And is this also true for brisket etc?

[Dave the Cook]

On the pinkness: I'm not certain, but my guess is that submersion in liquid prevents oxidation, even though the meat temperature rises far above well-done temperatures. Color isn't always a reliable indicator -- think of cured meats and how they maintain their pink color, even through long cooking times. I've also seen rack of lamb seared, then put in a vacuum pouch with a marinade for a day. Even though it was cooked to only 130 F, it was uniformly gray inside.

[Fat Guy]

My understanding is that oxidation is mostly a factor that affects the color of raw meat, and the most pronounced effect is that it makes meat a brighter red (although it can also cause loss of color over time). The bulk of the color change to cooked meat comes, I believe, from denaturing caused by heat, not by oxidation. But I also think it's an oversimplification to speak of the "color of the meat changing" because what's going on is more an issue of different pigments being created and destroyed (and also added), and their interactions. Just as a related, simple example: lobsters are said to "turn red" when cooking. Actually, the lobster always had the red in it. The cooking simply destroys all the other pigments in a lobster's shell, leaving only the red. In raw meat, color is mostly decided by the ratio of myoglobin to oxymyoglobin to metmyoglobin. Cooked meat also has denatured metmyoglobin, which is as far as I know "the brown stuff." There are all sorts of things that can cause cooked meat to be pink: it can have to do with pH, or even nitrates -- remember, your braising liquid may contain water or vegetables with naturally occurring nitrates, or it may contain pH-affecting wine and such. Anyway, I'm no expert on this. Here are some sources:

Everything you ever wanted to know about the -globins in meat, from two meat scientists

Much information about the color of meat, from the USDA/FSIS

[MobyP]

Another question:

If you decide to braise cut X at 200 F for 7 hours, can you break this up into two times? For instance, 5 hours the first day, and then 2 hours to finish it on another day entirely (not counting that the in the cooling off period, it will keep cooking for a while...).

So, if the total time needed at the 'temperature stall' is (for example) 2 hours, can you do the first hour on one day, and the second the next, or is it a cumulative effect of heat on collagen?

[jackal10]

The problem is that meat conducts very slowly, and you will only get the centre of a decent size piece up to temperature in 5 hours, so you will need 6 hours+ another 6 hours for the same effect.

In the egCI science section http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40548 refered to above there is a table about meat colour.

Oxymyoglobin is bright red; reduced is dark purple/brown, the colour of properly hung meat, since the maturation process uses up the oxygen; nitro-myoglobin, as in nitrite cured or smoked meats is pink; dnatured myoglobin, where thechemical structure has been denatured by cooking, is grey. It denatures around 55C/140F, much lower than the temperature at which the collagen dissolves with any speed.

Thus you can have your braised meat pink and tough, or greyish and falling apart.

I guess the pink colour you saw may have been from the nitrates, perhaps in the marinade or cooking liquor, for example leached fom some bacon included.

Personally I cook my braised meat to an internal temoerature of about 75C/170F, as a compromise between tenderness and still having some structure.

[Shalmanese]

For the record, these were about 5cm/2in cubs of chuck, marinated in coconut cream and ginger for 6 hours and then cooked slowly in a coconut cream/milk base for 2 hours and a gentle simmer.

My understand of braising was that there was a minimum cooking time but the thing only got better the longer you cooked it. Since braising times vary by as much as 100% between recipes, there doesn't seem to be all that much accuracy invovled.

People will leave crock pots on in the morning and eat it when they get home, crock pots at night and eat it for lunch, 2 hours braise, 6 hour braise, 6 hour braise + cool for 12 hours then another 6 hour brasie, how come they all come out edible if collagen goes through such a variety of transformations.

[fiftydollars]

What are everyone’s thoughts on braising temperatures?

I am fond of Mario Batali’s osso buco recipe, which requires braising for 2-2.5 hours at 375 degrees.

This seems to be a much higher temperature than what is used in most braising applications. Am I wrong to believe most braising is usually done around 100+ degrees lower than this osso buco?

[mamster]

I don't think braising temperature matters very much. If you put a pot in the oven at 375, you're cooking at a full boil. That might give you a smaller window between tender and dry, falling-apart mush, and it might be too vigorous for some of your ingredients (edges of the meat might fray, for example), but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I've read in many otherwise reliable books that braising too hot will cause the meat to seize up and never become tender, or something like that, but that just isn't true in my experience.

[cjsadler]

I don't think braising temperature matters very much. If you put a pot in the oven at 375, you're cooking at a full boil. That might give you a smaller window between tender and dry, falling-apart mush, and it might be too vigorous for some of your ingredients (edges of the meat might fray, for example), but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I've read in many otherwise reliable books that braising too hot will cause the meat to seize up and never become tender, or something like that, but that just isn't true in my experience.

←

But won't this cause the rendered fat from the meat to emulsify into the braising liquid, making your eventual sauce too greasy tasting? Just like if you boiled your chicken stock at a high temp?

[Shalmanese]

I was always puzzled by the batali recipe and although I've made the dish several times, I've never had the guts to go at 375. OTOH, russ parson writes that braising can also be achieved at 400F in a tightly covered heavy dish although the result is markedly different.

To add a further wrinkle to the picture, pressure cooked meat cooked at temperatures far above boiling also inexplicably result in tender, falling apart meat. I'm guessing the effect of both the 400F and the PC methods are the same and rely on a different chemical process from conventional braising.

So is it every customary to braise at the temperature of med rare meat? I suppose it would be a mix between a braise and a poach.

[jackal10]

The rate the collagen dissolves is strongly temperature dependant - the hotter the faster, but then the drier is the resulting meat. Hotter in an open pan also results in the evaporation of more liquid (and the lighter aromatics). However its all the same chemistry.

Another factor is the thickness of the meat, which governs the time it takes for the centre to get up to temperature.

Remember the collagen is the connecting tissue; you also have to consider the degredation of the muscle fibres, and the hotter they get the dryer and stringier the result.

Pressure cookers get hotter than braising in an open pan. but to my taste make the meat dry. Tender, yes, but dry and stringy.

Double wrapping pans in foil etc are just ways of holding down the temperature.

You can braise at medium rare temperature, say 55C/140F. Some chefs cook meat sous-vide at this temperature in a water bath for days.

If you have a resonably constant temperature setting try it - its fairly easy to do. Myself, I don't like the effect I think it results in a sort of meat paste with tough lumps in it.

This is because while the muscle fibres don't go dry and stringy, only the thin inter-fibre collagen dissolves resulting in super-soft meat with little basic texture, and the larger bits of collagen such as the sinews, nerves, small blood vessels don't fully dissolve leaving little hard knots in the soft matrix of muscle fibres.

[RETREVR]

It doesn't really matter if you cover the meat by a third (Judy Rogers) or completely (Daniel Boulud). The cops won't kick down your door and bust you on it. The only issue is how much work you want to put into cleaning up your sauce afterwords - straining, removing the veg, and reducing the liquid to a sauce consistency.

←

In application it does...depending on the cut. Having a nice crust can be to iceing on the cake of a good braise. Especially if the cut has a fat cap on it.

[RETREVR]

.....Just as a related, simple example: lobsters are said to "turn red" when cooking. Actually, the lobster always had the red in it. The cooking simply destroys all the other pigments in a lobster's shell, leaving only the red.

←

A red lobster is actually every color but red. When we see red, we are actually seeing the red wavelengths of light reflecting off the shell of the lobster. The red lobster is in fact, yellow and blue.

[Shalmanese]

Thats funny, I would call PC meat the opposite of dry. The only things I really like in the PC are meaty pork bones from the asian butcher, the PC turns the bones crumbly which means it's a lot easier to get every last scrap of meat off them. For other things, I like stovetop so I can occasionally peek in and stir it once in a while.

[helenas]

Yesterday i braised oxtail/tongue using a recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's MEAT book and now am planning to make the red wine sauce.

HFW's recipe calls for 1/2 bottle of red wine to be reduced with all the braising liquid not specifying the volume.

The braising got me 4 quarts/~litres of flavorful stock, and i think it's too much for the sauce.

So what if i use 2 quarts with 1/2 bottle of wine and reduce it to 4 cups?

Does it sound right? Or do i need more wine/less stock?

Thank you, helena

[Fat Guy]

.....Just as a related, simple example: lobsters are said to "turn red" when cooking. Actually, the lobster always had the red in it. The cooking simply destroys all the other pigments in a lobster's shell, leaving only the red.

←

A red lobster is actually every color but red. When we see red, we are actually seeing the red wavelengths of light reflecting off the shell of the lobster. The red lobster is in fact, yellow and blue.

←

But that's how we define the color of an object. An object that reflects only the red wavelengths of the visible spectrum is known as "red."

[nathanm]

The original post was about cooking meat slowly, at low tempertaure, so that the collagen turns to gelatine, but the meat is still medium rare. It works really well- at least for me.

However, you need the right circumstances. As a previous post discusses, first you need the meat interior to reach the desired temperature. That takes some time. 130F /54C to 140F / 60C is a fine range - I have done pretty much all of this.

You do not want to go lower than 130F / 54C for two reasons - food safety gets dodgy, and also the collagen-gelatine conversion slows down the lower you go.

Then you need to hold the meat at that temperature for enough time for the collagen to convert. A chart of time and temperature would be great, but alas i don't have one. I have a few results of my own and have collected a few more.

Heston Blumenthal says somewhere that 136F /58C is the best temperature for lamb, and suggests that no more than 10 hours.

There are two ways that I do it. One is to roast the meat in a Rational Combi Oven, with a special low temperature roasting program. First it browns the exterior at high temperature (392F / 200C), then the oven cools down, then it roasts at 150F / 66 C and slowly drops this down over time. Once the interior is the right temperature it then holds the meat at the interior setting for as long as you like (up to 24 hours).

The collagen to gelatine conversion requires water, so the exterior does NOT convert, but inside the meat it is plenty wet.

You could do this in a conventional oven but it is not easy because you can't wait until the interior hits the right temperature - it will overshoot on you.

The other way that I do this is sous vide. That is easy, you put the meat - usually with some liquid (stock, or oil / fat) and seal it in a vacuum bag. Then you put it in either a Rational combi oven on steam mode, or a laboratory water bath at the interior temperature. Again, once the interior reaches the right temperature you leave it fo sit for the conversion time.

I've done the roasting method up to 14 hours. I've done the sous vide method for up to 48 hours.

The result is tender meat that looks medium rare (is red inside), but is as tender as you want.

I have done lots of very tough meat cuts this way - it works great.