Thank you for the reply, and I see your point. I guess that what I do
when vacuum marinating quickly with apple juice is preferable to me, in
the case of what I'm trying to do. I personally do not like meat that's
been marinated in papaya juice to cause it to become more tender, for
instance. To me, it becomes mushy and I'd prefer to chew a little harder
than to have the texture changed. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but I
just don't like meat that has been actually tenderized by a marinade.

In the case of the apple juice, I've found that an hour or so for
chicken or overnight for ribs gives an extremely moist meat with just a
little bit of a sweet taste that goes well with smoke. Maybe, since
apple juice is slightly acidic, a longer time would result in chemical
changes to the meat, but the shorter time just makes it juicy. I've
done no research into the changes in meat texture as a function of
acidity or papaya, so if anyone has more observations, I'd sure enjoy
reading about them.

Nonny

wrote:
> On 11-Dec-2006, Nonnymus > wrote:
>
>> Yesterday afternoon, I fired up the Bradley for its first cooking. I
>> chose 24 wings, which I vacuum marinated for 2 hours in apple juice,
>> garlic and a little salt. That's just a vacuum variation of my
>> traditional marinade, so outside of 2 hours vs. overnight, it wasn't a
>> variable. They were rubbed with EVOO just before placing them on the
>> racks.
>>
>> The wings went onto 2 racks, set in the center at 240f, with 4+2 pucks
>> of apple for smoke. I did them 3 hours, which gave me an internal
>> temperature of 170f on my radio remote probe. I did it with the damper
>> almost closed off and with the used marinade in the water pan.
>>
>> The results were absolutely excellent, and as if I'd been cooking them
>> this way all my life. The only thing I will be experimenting and
>> possibly changing is the outside of the wings. They were so moist that
>> they literally were dripping. The outside was tan from the smoke, but I
>> think it'd be a tad prettier if I'd finish them off on the grill for
>> about 10 minutes on a high direct heat to dry the skin a tad and give it
>> more of a scrunch when you bite in.
>>
>> Today, I put 2 racks of ribs on at 200f with the timer set to look in on
>> them at 6 hours. They're cooking with 8 +2 pucks of Pecan with the
>> damper about 1/4 open to see if it gives them a bit more crust than the
>> wings. They were marinated in vacuum overnight in apple juice and some
>> spices I threw together. This morning, I ground on black pepper when
>> they were on the rack.
>>
>> Something also I noticed that is really great about the Bradley, is how
>> well the racks fit into a dishwasher.
>> --
>> ---Nonnymus---
>
> Just a note here Nonny. While vacuum marinade is not to be discounted. One
> must remember that the typical marinade is meant to cause physical de-
> composition of the meat. While short periods of vacuum marinade wll
> result in saturation of the meat with the marinade, it will not cause the
> physical transformation of the cell structure of the meat. With this in
> mind,
> vacuum can be an important tool in your reperatoir.
>

--
---Nonnymus---
In the periodic table, as in politics,
the unstable elements tend to hang out on
the far left, with some to the right as well.