Could you brine steak?
I have read that brining pork chops is a good idea but can you brine beef steaks of various cuts? Would this achieve anything good or spectacular or is it just a waste of time?
Best Answer
There certainly are proponents of brining beef to impact texture and flavor. In my looking across the internets, it appears that dry "brining" is more common than wet, but both are used for steaks. Whether or not the results are "spectacular" is up to you. So, I would give it a try to see if you like it. For me, I generally don't prefer the texture of brined meat, with the exception of boneless pork loin chops. Given their leanness, I think a couple of hours in a salt/sugar brine helps. If you like the results, be sure to experiment with time in the brine. As it is possible to over do it, negatively impacting the texture.
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Quick Answer about "Could you brine steak?"
Steaks should be fully submerged in brine, placed in the fridge, then left to soak for 30 minutes to 24 hours. How Wet Brining Works: Wet brining flavors meat the same way dry brining does. Because the saline (saltwater) solution is pre-dissolved, wet brines begin to tenderize and permeate meats faster than dry brines.Is it good to brine steak?
By using a dry brine, the meat will absorb the natural juices of the cut, resulting in a juicy steak with all the natural flavor of the meat. The theory is simple. Salt works its way into the meat through osmosis. It denatures the proteins, relaxing the fibers and making the steak more tender.How long can you brine a steak?
Can meat be brined too long? Brining for too long will actually make the finished, cooked steaks taste way too salty (and can even start to dry out the meat, after enough time). Because of this, you'll want to make sure that you don't let your dry brined steaks sit for longer than 4 hours (even refrigerated).What is a good brine for steak?
We recommend kosher or sea salt for dry brining. If desired, you can also use a rub, like Omaha Steaks Private Reserve rub, for added flavors.Will brining a steak make it tender?
However, there are two solid reasons why you should brine your meat in the 21st-century: flavor and texture. Brining infuses the meat with savory, finger-lickin' flavors, all while tenderizing it to butter-soft texture.Should you brine your steak? -- Steak EXPERIMENT !!!
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Answer 2
For tender meat like steak, brining is generally not needed (nor recommended). However I can see some applications where you'd want to delicately brine a thick cut of a steak by submerging the meat for a long-time in a low-concentration salt-water solution i.e. equilibrium brining
Quoting directly from the Chefsteps Equilibrium Brining page:
The goal of brining is to apply enough salt to meat or seafood that the food retains more juices during cooking and that flavor is enhanced without curing the flesh in process. This challenge is analogous to cooking to a particular core temperature. You can cook at a temperature higher than the desired doneness and try to time the cooking just right. But if the center is perfectly done, the part near the surface will inevitably be overcooked. The alternative is to cook at the desired final core temperature and wait for the entire piece of food to reach equilibrium with the cooking temperature. This is the typical approach used when cooking sous vide. With brining, you have the same choice: brine the food in a very strong salt solution and then remove it before it is over-salted, or soak the food in a brine with just the right amount of salt. The latter is our preferred approach because it does away with all of the guesswork. We call it equilibrium brining.
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