Unbrining Experiment [General]
2011 Oct 5
I'm interested in your results. I brine all pork and poultry before cooking but would love to reduce the sodium.
Technically it shouldn't work based on my understanding of osmosis and denaturation. Since denaturation isn't 'set' until the meat is cooked, you'll probably undo a portion of the positive effects of the salt brine.
Will you do some pre/post weights to show results?
You saw positive results under vacuum because gasses in the meat were forced out by the vacuum, this left the meat with a negative internal pressure when you return it to atmospheric pressure. The meat then equalized the pressure difference by drawing in the water surrounding it.
2011 Oct 5
@foodfun, I'll keep you posted. Unfortunately, I didn't weigh the turkey before, nor the chicken pieces. I'll have to rerun the experiment again with the chicken pieces.
Currently the chicken pieces in the mason jar under vacuum have soaked up all the post brine liquid (almost completely actually) and I haven't released them from vacuum yet. If salt has moved into the meat from the brining (which it must have, since the brined meat is definitely more salty) then that salt should be drawing more water in from the surrounding post brine solution. Hopefully salt will move out too, if there is enough free liquid. With the chicken pieces all the liquid has been absorbed, so there is no free liquid for the salt to move to.
Currently the chicken pieces in the mason jar under vacuum have soaked up all the post brine liquid (almost completely actually) and I haven't released them from vacuum yet. If salt has moved into the meat from the brining (which it must have, since the brined meat is definitely more salty) then that salt should be drawing more water in from the surrounding post brine solution. Hopefully salt will move out too, if there is enough free liquid. With the chicken pieces all the liquid has been absorbed, so there is no free liquid for the salt to move to.
2011 Oct 9
The unbrining experiment was a success.
I brined a turkey for 24 hours in a brine made with 3/4 mason jar of table salt and 8 mason jars of water. Then, after rinsing, I unbrined it for 48 hours in an equivalent amount of fresh water with 4 tbsps of liquid somke added. The turkey was in two halves (bought it that way - they sliced it in half frozen with their bandsaw at IGA).
My wife said the turkey was not salty at all, though she is very sensitive to salt and has complained about 12 hour brined turkey being too salty before. The meat was very moist and juicy, with a subtle smoky flavor. The texture was more like juicy chicken that turkey.
I should mention that after the unbrining I cooked the two turkey halves sous vide at 56C fopr 20 hours. Then I wok fried each half skin side down in hot oil.
I've done unbrined turkey sous vide before at that temp, and this way was moister.
I will re-run the unbrining experiment, next time weighing before and after each step.
I brined a turkey for 24 hours in a brine made with 3/4 mason jar of table salt and 8 mason jars of water. Then, after rinsing, I unbrined it for 48 hours in an equivalent amount of fresh water with 4 tbsps of liquid somke added. The turkey was in two halves (bought it that way - they sliced it in half frozen with their bandsaw at IGA).
My wife said the turkey was not salty at all, though she is very sensitive to salt and has complained about 12 hour brined turkey being too salty before. The meat was very moist and juicy, with a subtle smoky flavor. The texture was more like juicy chicken that turkey.
I should mention that after the unbrining I cooked the two turkey halves sous vide at 56C fopr 20 hours. Then I wok fried each half skin side down in hot oil.
I've done unbrined turkey sous vide before at that temp, and this way was moister.
I will re-run the unbrining experiment, next time weighing before and after each step.
2011 Oct 12
I made my daughter a piece of salmon sous vide, unbrined a few days (we had it Saturday and there was a piece left, unbrining in a mason jar since). It wasn't the least bit salty and I feel some of the flavor had gone from it too, still good, but not superb, like the pieces we had unbrined overnight. I guess you can unbrine too much ! The salt will diffuse out, and so will some flavor.
2011 Oct 13
@zym, the idea was to see if I could get the salt back out and even more moisture and flavor in. My wife is very sensitive to salt and doesn't like anything brined. The idea was to put the brined food in fresh water, and then the water would start moving into the brined meat. Since the salt can diffuse out, it will start doing that too. But if you leave it too long (2 days) then you lose some flavor as that goes out too, but much more slowly than the salt, I think. An overnight unbrining worked well on salmon filets (under vacuum for both brining and unbrining), and my turkey worked with a 1 day brine, and 2 day unbrine (not vacuumed). But the salmon fillet I kept unbrining (vacuumed) for 3 days lost flavor.
Why not just use less salt initially? Because after the salt first moves in, it denatures proteins which also cause moisture to be drawn in, so low salt brining doesn't work well.
Why not just use less salt initially? Because after the salt first moves in, it denatures proteins which also cause moisture to be drawn in, so low salt brining doesn't work well.
Francis
What I'm going to do is this: after regular turkey brining, I'm going to soak the bird in fresh water containing some liquid smoke. My hope is even more water, and the liquid smoke, will move into the meat, and a lot of the salt will move out.
I've observed this already with chicken pieces in mason jars. They really soak up water if soaked again with fresh water after brining. This was observed under vacuum, but since I don't have a vacuum chamber big enough to put a whole turkey under vacuum, the turkey experiment will have to be done at atmospheric. But it may still work. :-)