How Do Brines Work?

[ChefRon]

Always interested in trying new techniques, I decided to follow the advise of a chef on the Food Channel by placing my family's Thansgiving Turkey in a brine solution 12 hours before cooking. I figured, what the heck? It was an approach that was alien to me and I figured it might be worth the attempt.

The result was marvellous. I have never had a turkey breast come out so moist and flavorful. What happened? Can someone please explain the chemical or molecular factors that were at play? I am having a difficult time understanding the science of brines.

Thank you,

Ron

Hello, and congrats on a succulent turkey!

Got this from a website with a very long URL. I can sure copy it for you if you'd like!

People are always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to prepare old standards like chicken and turkey. Several methods have become popular in recent years, which involve the use of a liquid to change or improve the flavor, taste, tenderness, or texture of poultry. Various liquids can be added to poultry by many different methods such as injection, marinating, brining, or basting. Some of these products can be purchased ready to cook for convenience, and others can be prepared at home.

Marinating
The verb "marinate" means to steep food in a marinade. A marinade is a savory acidic sauce in which a food is soaked to enrich its flavor or to tenderize it.

According to Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, "Marinades began as simple brines for preserving fish. The word marinade stems from the same root as the word maritime. In modern usage, a marinade consists of a cooking oil, an acid (vinegar, lemon juice, wine), and spices. As the food stands in the mixture, the acid and the oil impart the savory flavors of the spices to the food. The acid also has a tenderizing action."

The acid in marinades causes poultry tissue to break down. This has a tenderizing effect. The breaking down of the tissue also causes the poultry to hold more liquid, making it juicier. Too much vinegar or hot sauce in a marinade can have the opposite effect, causing the meat to be stringy and tough.

Brining
The verb "brine" means to treat with or steep in brine. Brine is a strong solution of water and salt. A sweetener such as sugar, molasses, honey, or corn syrup may be added to the solution for flavor and to improve browning.

The salt has two effects on poultry, reports Dr. Alan Sams, a professor of poultry science at Texas A & M University. "It dissolves protein in muscle, and the salt and protein reduce moisture loss during cooking. This makes the meat juicer, more tender, and improves the flavor. The low levels of salt enhance the other natural flavors of poultry.

Julie

[Wambly]

Brine is great stuff ...
Try it on pork chops too.

[Mezzaluna]

What does brining do to the sodium content of the meat? How much salt is actually absorbed? I'm rather sensitive to salt, but am attracted to the flavor and tenderness brining promises.

[cape chef]

Sounds like a successful T-day for you!
I love to brine by ducks as well before i smoke them in my altoshame. The most basic of brining is as follows. It is a solution of water and salt (preferable soft water). Its main function is to draw the sugers and moisture out of the foods and form lactic acids which protect the food bacteria and spoilage. The srongest brine for foods is a %10 percent solution as you brine your food

the brine will start to break down from the .liquides that are being drawn out, A rule of thumb I use to test my brines is if a egg floats on top of the solution,just breaks the surface you have a 10 percent brine. As previously stated you can add many different flavor coponents to your brine. Happy brining
cc Mezzaluna,
The salt really imparts very little flavor it is there to pull out the sugers and moistere so it is not absorbed by the food Like curing a salmon the salt firms the flesh and cures the fish and the suger helps keep the flesh tender and moist

[This message has been edited by cape chef (edited 11-24-2000).]

[Isa]

In the book From Simple to Spectacular, the authors suggest putting the chicken in salt water with just a bit of sugar for two hours before cooking. I followed that direction. I had never heard of anything like that before and they didn't give any explanation as to why one should do that. In any case two hours later I roasted the chicken at 450°F. The chicken turned out great. The skin was crisp and golden in colour. The meat was wonderful, very moist. I thought it was because it cooked at a high temperature for just over a hour, thinking the meat didn't have to dry. I was glad to find this topic this morning. What a coincidence. Now I wonder if I should do the same with the Christmas turkey?


Thank you Julie and Cape Chef for the explanation on brining.


Sisi

[UniChef]

Chef Ron-

What kind of a brine did you use? To just soak a whole turkey for 12 hours is not enough to fully cure it. To give you some idea of the length of time it takes to cure something, an average size fresh ham would take 2-3 weeks to fully cure in the center if it was strickly soaked. The way they do it commercially is by pumping. They inject the brine directly into the muscle so it cures right away. As a matter of fact, this is how they do bacon. They run the pork bellies down a belt and a row of needles come down and pump the meat all in one shot.

Back to the turkey- I have infused turkey breasts myself with a hypodermic needle with a solution of apple juice concentrate and bourbon then I smoke it- awesome!

Commercial brines are made from a combination of sodium nitrite and a salt carrier. Also reffered to as Prauge Powder #1. (Prauge Powder #2 is sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate and is used for dry cured sausages and meat.)

If your're interested in curing meats, sausage making, I highly suggest Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing by Rytek Kutas. He also has a mail order catalog for his Sausage Maker outfit in Buffalo and they have everything you could image for sausage making.

ChefRon,
I saw your question at another (gasp!) web site and answered it and rather than retyping my answer I copied it and am reposting it also.

ChefRon,
In a sense it's simple, but on a scientific level it's more complex, but here is the simple solution as I was able to glean through studies:
A cure is a basic process formerly used as you know to extend a foods longevity. Salt and or brines would create a heavy concentration of dissolved ions that would pull the liquid out of the cell walls and replace it with salt thereby drying up and inhibiting any microbe growth keeping the meat and or vegetable from turning. This is similar to what we do now when we cook fruits in a sugar syrup. We replace the water in the cells with a saturated sugar solution except that sugar in fact maintains and increases the cell walls strength whereas salt weakens the cellular structure but the sugar also helps to inhibit microbial growth due to a lack of water. Back in the day an added feature was nitrites which were originally a trace mineral in the salt that was used for curing which gave meat a pink color rather than a yechh brown, gray. But I digress, placing a large animal such as a turkey in a brine solution would take significantly longer than 12 hours to effect a true "cure". Therefore what in fact is happening is that as the cure reaches down through the meat it is drawing water out of the cells but doesn't have the time to resaturate them with a brine solution. This is done in this case by denaturing the proteins (weakening as I said the cellular walls) and freeing the water bound in them . Before the salt (brine) has a chance to draw all the water out of the turkey, the bird is removed from the brine and the freed water is out of the cells and has mixed with the salt and essentially has marinated the bird. This is also the same principal used in marinades except that marinades contain acid that will also denature the protein and breaking them down to effect tenderness as well as flavor. This concludes Turkey 101 and I hope it was scientific enough for you.
Chrose

[ChefRon]

Chef Julie, Chrose and friends,

Thank you so very much for your wonderful answers! I believe I better understand the principles of brining now, and intend to apply brines much more often in the future.

However, this brings me to yet another matter of investigation which I would again value your comments on. In researching the subject of brines (on my own with search engines), I learned that one reason brines are becomming all the rage among many chefs is that our nation's pork and poultry supply is not what it used to be.

It has been written that most growers are not as patient in raising and feeding poultry, and in an effort to get poultry to market sooner, the birds have much less body fat. I understand that much poultry is bred for maximum growth in limited periods of time.

It would appear that the grower gains many benefits. He needs less feed, turns inventory more quickly, and can now raise his prices by proclaiming his product as "low fat". Wow! What a scam!

Anyway, chefs understand that "low fat" often means "low flavor" and "low moisture". To compensate, brines appear to be offering a simple solution (no pun intended). I understand that many chefs prefer brining pork chops and poultry cuts before cooking because the added moisture grants a kind of buffer zone for cooking errors on the line. That is, if the cook leaves the chicken breast or pork chop in the skillet or on the char a minute too long, the result will be more forgiving.

In any case, my question is this: is it correct, in your opinion, to say that today's growers are intentionally reducing growth time and resulting fat content? If so, how do they do this? That is, how does one go about expediting the growth of an animal?

Thank you,

-Ron

[Mezzaluna]

I think so, Sisi. In some parts of the U.S. and elsewhere, the beef is grass-fed. It pales in comparison to grain-fed Midwestern beef, IMHO. But I also feel modern beef is too lean and brought to market too young to have really good flavor.

[UniChef]

I never did understand the "free range" thing. It seems to me that an animal that runs around and gets more excercise is leaner and the end result is tougher meat.

That's why I love those calves they leave all tied up in the dark.....yum!

[Isa]

How do you accelerate growth? Hormones.


I have a feeling free range and grain fed chicken will get more and more popular. Don't know about beef though, could there be such a thing as free range beef?

It isn't just poultry and meats - it's fruits and veggies as well. They're grown for shelf life and ship-ability rather than taste. At the turn of the previous century (19th to 20th), there were more than 5,000 varieties of apples being grown in the US; as of around 1985, there were less than 150. That's why it's important to support local growers and other food folk when ever possible!

Or, as we said in the 70's - grow your own!

[Isa]

Free range chicken might have tougher meat but isn't that why you would brine one? In any case, I am sure the meat would be of better quality then the chicken we find in supermarket these days. Surely the best chicken would be a grain fed free range one. If one could ever find it…

MaryeO you right about the apple situation and the sad thing is that it does applies to every fruits and vegetables we grow. Things are not grown for optimum taste but for optimum profit. Of course this would eliminate half the varieties. Thankfully there are now many organisations that specialise in heirloom seeds.

There seem to be more of a interest into developing local produces, acquiring a "terroir" as the French would say. More and more we see artisan cheese makers, brewery and fresh produce growers that specialised in "exotic" vegetables and fruits. There is a bigger demand for such things, the consumers are getting more demanding and are acquiring a taste for quality products


Sisi

[kuan]

I figure I'd dig up an old thread. This is before my time even!