All About Brining

What is Brine ?

Brine is a mixture of equal parts of salt and sugar in cold water. Brining is similar to marination, wherein the meat/poultry is soaked in brine for hours before cooking.

Why Brine ?

If one is looking for a very moist juicy meat, then brining is the answer. It adds moisture to meat, making it even more plump than its natural tenderness. Since brining adds in extra moisture to the meat and locks it in, the resulted cooked meat is delicious moist and juicy. Basically it prevents the meat to dehydrate while cooking.

-   How to Brine ?

-         In a large enough container, which can submerge the meat completely, mix equal amount of salt and sugar in COLD water. Generally 1/8 cup of table salt per one liter of water is enough for brining.

-         Sugar, not only helps in neutralizing the salty mixture, but also in caramelizing the meat while cooking.

-         Soak the chicken into the brine and refrigerate it for a minimum of 2 hours to a maximum of a day.

-         One can add extra seasoning into the brine to spice up the flavor. Example : crushed garlic, ginger, crushed pepper etc.

How does Brine work ?

Brining meat acts at the molecular level. Brining leads to hydrate the cells of its muscle tissue by the process of Osmosis and then making the cells to hold on to the water by the process of denaturation. 

Explanation in detail :

Definition of Osmosis is, when a solvent moves from a low solute concentration to a high solute concentration (salt water in this case) through a semi-permeable membrane to form equilibrium.

Well in that case, the action should have been the reverse. The low concentration salty fluid from meat cells should have flowed out to the higher concentration salty water of brine, resulting into even more dry meat ! But in reality we get hydrated tender meat, which is even more salty! So definitely something more happens……

Due to osmosis, the water flows out of the meat, but salt ions flow in by the process of diffusion. These salt ions then break the proteins in the meat cells, i.e. it denatures the protein cells. The denatured protein molecules become even more concentrated and the solute level thus rises within the cells. This then causes the reverse water flow and hence additional water flows into the meat. 

Now you may ask, if this process of water going in and out of cells continues, to maintain equilibrium then when does it stop to keep the meat hydrated with the water locked in? The answer to this is, the denatured protein cells are larger molecules and so these larger molecules cannot flow out of the cell membrane. So osmosis causes even more water to flow in. This continues till the osmotic pressure is reached to nullify the osmosis. 

Hope Brining Cooking Technique explanation helped you understand your cooking even better !! :)