Making smoked foods Brining and smoking

It seems that brining is really important.

Its soaking food in a salt water solution.

Gratuitous smoked rib shot from last night

From here on in, it gets a little hazy.

Last night I made a brine of water sugar and salt. Id tell you the proportions, but I dont know what they are. It started with a half cup of rock salt and a half cup of brown sugar, and around two litres of water. But then I added some more water so I really have no idea.







Luckily, my recipe or lack there of isnt the point of this post.

This is...

Apparently brining initially adds salt to the cells in the food, then when the solution is a bit depleted, a cell might have more salt than the surrounding brine, so it starts to draw in water. From what Ive read, it might be worthwhile to figure out when that transition takes place, and remove the brine once the cells have started to turn towards taking on water, and replace it with a flavoured liquid instead of just the brine.

With this in mind, I spent a reasonable amount of time probing my whole chicken in brine with the probes of my multi-meter.

Its been an odd night.

It stands to reason that the changing salt content might change the resistance of the chicken. Resistance measures how conductive something is. Im pretty sure salt water conducts better than pure water, and less sure that perhaps pure water might not conduct electricity much/at all. Either way, there might be something useful to be gained from sticking probes into chicken.

Wikipedia says this on the subject (on conductivity, not on probing chickens)...

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from...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purified_water#Electrical_Conductivity

Electrical Conductivity

Electrical conductivity of ultra-pure water is 5.5 × 10^?6 S·m^?1 (18 M? cm in the reciprocal terms of Electrical Resistivity) and is due only to H⁺ and OH^- ions produced in the water dissociation equilibrium.^[7][8] This low conductivity is only achieved, however, in the presence of dissolved monoatomic gases. Completely de-gassed ultra-pure water has conductivity of 1.2 × 10^?4 S·m^?1, whereas upon equilibration to the atmosphere it is 7.5  × 10^?5 S·m^?1 due to dissolved CO₂ in it.

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Im not really sure why it says that. Im guessing it means something to someone, but I think its roughly agreeing with me.

So...

With this in mind, it might be possible to detect the point at which the food stops taking in salt, and starts taking in moisture.

Currently Im at the stage in my research where I find it annoyingly difficult to get a good reading. The harder you press the probes, the better chicken conducts. Im guessing this is just because theres more chicken exposed to the current, because theres more probe exposed to the chicken.

So for my next trick, Il be concentrating on the brine and its conductivity because I can completely submerge the probes, and as a result, I might get more consistent readings.

Im also at two more stages.

One is not being sure what I should be looking for in the readings. ie how whats happening should effect the conductivity of the readings.

And the other is wondering if perhaps I should just have a bit of a lie down, and forget the entire episode.




120 Things in 20 years - Maybe the reason aliens are always probing things is because they are trying to ascertain the correct procedure for brining and smoking everything. Aliens like making smoked foods.

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Thinking Vegetable stock

Risking yet more plagiarism I thought Id mention an idea we had the other day. (although I have a funny feeling I may have already mentioned it...

if so...

To re-cap...

For some time now, we in the 120 things test kitchen have been saving and freezing the water left in the steamer after steaming some veggies to make stock at a later date. We have also been throwing our veggie peelings and scraps into the freezer for making vegetable stock at a later date. Apparently a common practice (I checked this time).

But now, we throw the veggie scraps into the steamer pan before we steam our veggies, and as a result, we get amazing stock every time we cook veggies.

If we dont use it on the day (but we generally do), we just freeze it (or freeze it by adding it to the ever growing container of veggie stock we now have in our freezer ready for the time we have enough to make a decent amount of stock).

The stuff makes an amazing soup base, and makes an even more amazing base to a chicken or whatever stock.

• Peel your veggies. 
• Put the peelings into the bottom steamer pan.
• Add water. 
• Steam the veggies.

BAM!

Mega-stock left behind in the steamer water.

Peta-stock!

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Making smoked foods Luxury Cut Ribs

I have a hot tip for making ribs.

Its very simple, but it always pleases.

I call it Luxury Cut or sometimes Lux Cut.

All thats required is just before serving, you remove every second rib bone, so that the ones on either side get double their share of meat.

Total luxury.

Ask your butcher to do it for you. Tell them to just throw the removed bare bones onto the scales as well so you still pay the correct amount. If you do, they probably wont charge you any more for the preparation time. Turn the bones into stock or whatever. Always go to your butcher during non-peak times.

I promise you will never go back (not to the butcher, youll go back to the butcher. Just not to normal ribs)

And sorry to any Vegetarians reading.

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Making smoked foods Frenched luxury cut ribs

I thought I was pretty clever when I came up with cutting ribs so that ever second bone was removed. I called it "luxury cut ribs". This is always enormously popular with people at a BBQ.

But now I think Im even more clever.

Cleverer.

I frenched every rib, but at opposing ends.

Luxury cut, but with a handle.

A genuine meat popsicle.

Bam!

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