How does brining meat work?

[nick_karkie]

We are looking at brining out chickens overnight for our restaurant and the briners seem to suggest that the solution must be very salty to allow osmosis to occur, but if i remember rightly at school, osmosis is where water moves from the least concentrated solution to the most concentrated solution, hence, in my opinion water will leave the cells of the chicken and go into the brine solution, making the meat drier. Is there something I am missing? It just doesnt make sense to me, and judging by the wiki definition of osmosis I seem to be correct. Anyone know why brining works to make meat jucier?

 

random question I know haha

 

 

Dont worry, found the solution haha, close thread

[Chris Wilson]

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/images/document/howto/ND01_ISBriningbasics.pdf

 

For those like me who just had to find out

[tooquicktostop]

Very gently poaching a whole chicken or chicken breast before roasting keeps the meat very moist, you go the the ultimate when you sous vide the meat and use a water bath to "cook" it, then use very high searing heat to give the roast outer with a moist flesh, sous vide also reduces weight loss during the roasting process

 

I also like the Swiss designed "hold-o-mat" as a restaurant method of keeping cooked meats in ideal condition when cooked and held for the next course

 

I dont like the idea of soaking poultry in brine but interested in the results you get

[nick_karkie]

We have been doing it for years and they do come out well but judging by the research i have done it has very little to do with osmosis and is more based on the simple fact that if you put something in water then water will go into any gaps. A much better way to do it I guess is like the americans who win all the awards, they inject marinade into the breast and then rub and cook.

 

I agree with your hold-o-mat, we use something similar called a CVAP which reduces the weight loss of cooked chickens by about 16% over the course of 2 hours. when held in a humidifier they lose about 20% of their weight over that time compared with about 3 or 4% with the CVAP.