Brining...at high temp?

Question

I read that brining makes meat moister by causing protein cells to absorb water from the brine via osmosis (Wikipedia) So I thought, hmm, why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone: brine + slow-cook (sous-vide) at the same time for 12 hours or so (temp at 158º-160º). Boy, was I wrong, the pork came out tough and dry! :(

Is the effect of brining the opposite at higher temp?

UPDATE: I should also mention that later on, I slow-cook another one but this time in its own juice instead of brine and it turns out better.

Answer 1

I recommend giving this page a read: Equilibrium Brining

The idea is that when typically brining a piece of meat you may put it in a brine that is lets say 7% salt. Now it's up to you to time it correctly so that the meat and the salt solution will begin to equilibriate. Pull it out too soon and it's no big deal, put it in too long and you get a salty mess with a very tough texture.

A better way of doing this, and somewhat analogous to the stew comment, is to pick a salt concentration for the dish. Something delicate will need less salt compared to something more robust. Let's say you decide on 1.5% salt, meaning weigh your ingredients as a whole and then add 1.5% of that weight in salt. Using this method, you dont have to rely on timing, rather you can go about your business and cook it as you normally would because the salt concentration, no matter how long your cook it for, will never rise above that 1.5%. If you did this with the traditional brine, depending on the thickness of your meat, could get to 7% which would be very over-salted and probably a textural mess.

Now should we be cooking in brines? My advice, no, brine first and then cook normally because of the greater possibility of texture change with the prolonged time in the salt solution. But if you use the equilibrium method you can at least control the max salinity of the food.

Answer 2

Brining works at a cellular level; if the solution does not have the time to act and reach inter-cellular gaps then you won't get the benefits.

How does brining work (from same wiki article):

• the meat cells have water and solutes (sodium, chloride, potassium, amino acids, ...etc)
• the brine has salt (sodium, chloride)
• the salt ions of the brine diffuse into the cells
• the osmosis cause the cell to absorb water
• some other stuff happens to the proteins (denaturalization) causing the water to be trapped

This is a slow process, in particular for the salt ions to diffuse into theat, for the osmosis to happen, for the protein to coagulate ...etc.

How is brining different from curing:

• the concentration of solutes (e.g. sodium and chloride) is different
• curing is usually mostly done with salt (sugar/molasses/...etc optional)
• the concentration being higher, the osmotic pressure draws water out.

Slow cooking in the brine just didn't give a chance for the meat to absorb and trap water. Since you describe the meat as tough and dry, I would say this is mostly because of salt concentration seems too high (wet-curing).