Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> "Bob (this one)" > wrote in
> :
>
>
>>If tenderizing is your intent, this is rather a strange way to go
>>about it. Do keep in mind that any sort of tenderizing, whether
>>mechanical or chemical, causes cellular leakage. Cellular leakage
>>means that the meat will consist largely of cell walls. They carry no
>>flavor or moisture. It means dead-flavored and textured meats.
>>
>>Pastorio

this may or not be true--if the appropriate salt solution is used the
cells will just swell but not burst.

i am under the impression that the flavor of meats are due to proteins
mainly ---
>
>
> What about meat preparation for Swiss steak and chicken fried steak where
> pounding the meat considerably is requisite to the end product? In fact,
> meat put through a tenderizer is also a common practice for chicken fried
> steak. I don't notice a problem with the meat in those cases.
>
i am not looking for a specific way to tenderize steak by using
seltzer--the theoretical reason is that as the gas expands it will
separate tissue allowing brine solution etc permeate the meat faster.
i have e injected it once and what it did was to really separate the
muscle fibers--rather drastically!


so far the best tenderizer i have found is to inject plain yogurt into
the flesh--left no yogurt flavor but was a fantastic tenderizer.
i incidently tried flavored yogurt but the flavor did not come
thru--tried mango/orange

after 8 hours in dye colored plain water--chicken had less that 1/8 inch
permeation of dye into tissue--there was no difference in permeation
from either muscle fibers on edge along bone or from skin.


i am coming to the conclusion that brining only affects a very little
about of tissue if the meat is just soaked in the brine--brine to be
effective has to be injected into the meat-- or multiple punctures (
this probably has very little effect on flow thru tissue) or large
slashes have to be make

next experiment is to soak for a given time and then cook and see if dye
permeates further--suspect it will because of the increase in temperature.