ilaboo wrote:

> 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.

What I said is true, documented by others. The notion I referred to
above is about tenderizing. Mechanical tenderizing like pounding or
running through a "cuber" machine breaks/cuts cells and permits the
cellular fluids to leak out. Likewise, chemical tenderizing, using
papain or some other commercial compounds, will also cause cellular
rupture. Both mean that there will be "purge" or loss of liquids
before cooking.

Brining won't cause cellular rupture. It doesn't release fluids from
the meats, it causes meats to take them up and hold until the protein
denatures from either chemical "cooking" like adding strong acids or
cooking through heat in the traditional methods.

> i am under the impression that the flavor of meats are due to proteins
> mainly ---

Nope. The *structure* of meat is primarily due to protein. Flavors
come from cellular fluids and fats.

>> 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!

You're confused about the structure of meat. Fibers contain the cells.
The spaces between fibers is empty. The fibers you're talking about -
what you see when you shred meat or what you see when cutting it -
*are* meat. Getting between them is a rather meaningless concept for
treating meat. Your assumption is that the gases will somehow get into
the meat but only between the cells. It's not going to happen unless
you put it under pressure.

> 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.

Yogurt is acid. The lactose has been converted to lactic acid and that
tenderizes the meat by denaturing the protein. There are many better
ones. Papain (extracted from papayas) or the juice of figs or
pineapple will do a creditable job, but for different physical reasons.

> 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.

If you're only using dye, you won't get much penetration; flesh is
designed to be waterproof unless some drastic changes are made to it.
Add some food coloring to a standard brine mixture and watch it
penetrate. The solutes in the brines create at least two different
mechanisms to have the brine taken up by the meat. They're osmosis and
diffusion. Go read about them.

> 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

This is pure guesswork on your part and is wrong. Do yourself and
everyone else a favor and go read about brining from some reliable
sources who understand the physiology of meat and the physics of the
processes at hand. As it stands, your guesses are leading you in the
wrong directions.

Brining is a technique that likely goes back to prehistoric times.
You're trying to reinvent an already well-defined wheel without doing
any homework.

> 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.

This is what I mean. Temperature isn't the reason it will permeate
better. Denaturing the protein is why. But the process will reverse
when it reaches an appropriate temperature (which varies from meat to
meat) and most of the liquids will be purged.

Pastorio