Brining…at high temp

briningslow-cookingsous-vide

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.

Best Answer

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.