Does marinating in a vacuum bag really work?

[samspade]

Jonathan I came across this article and was wondering if marinating in a vacuum really works.

https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/pressuremarinade.html

[Chef]

samspade Very interesting article, and it does make sense scientifically. I have always wondered about this, but never took the time to search out any information on it. I do know that people do believe in vacuum marinating, but does anyone have side by side taste comparisons that they can share?

[glen]

Interesting article but I question using inert liquids
Vacuum or no vacuum what makes a marinade work is salt.
Salt seeks equilibrium so a piece of meat sitting in a salted marinade long enough will have virtually the same salt density as the marinade
The salt will carry water soluble flavors like onion and garlic with it into the meat
Salt supposedly will also help fat soluble flavors penetrate the meat due to the salts interaction with the meat cells
Adding vacuum is supposed to speed that process by helping the salt interact
I am not a scientist just reading and casual experience. I would also like to see an A/B test

[craigrice]

imho the vacuum tumbler would be a much more efficient process as it opens the pores and therefor lets the marinade / salts and other get into the meat quicker . I have bad luck trying to vac seal anything moist

[Pivodog]

I took a meat processing class at Texas A&M a few years ago and they did several experiments with marinating chicken in several different ways, plan marinade, vacuum tumbler, injection,… What they did was use a marinade with a green dye and cooked the product the next day to demonstrate how much of the marinade actually penetrated the chicken. The best results were using injection with a vacuum tumbler. The second runner-up was with just the vacuum tumbler, but you would really be surprised what little of the marinade actually absorbs into the meat by just soaking it overnight. This might be a good experiment for a future podcast? Jonathon I’ll look for the photos of the end results and post them if I still have them.

[Chef]

Not sure just how a vacuum can open pores. It should compress them. Science is science. Most dyes are salts compounds and would act similar to salt. I think that the science supports the article. Seeing the dye experiment makes sense. Opinions are nice buy looks what they are doing to our country.

[glen]

It’s all about time and does vacuum packing speed up the process
If salt doesn’t penetrate meat then prosciutto and other whole muscle cures would be impossible
Vacuum sealing also equalizes moisture within meat, I use vacuum packing when when I get some case hardening on dry cure salami

[Surg]

Very interesting. I have a marinating canister for my vac sealer. I’ve only used it once but I do believe it decreased the marinating time for my jerky. But did not do a side-by-side comparison which would be interesting. I think that in the article they talk about how when the vacuum is released any fluid that had been pulled up is expelled. However if the vacuum is held and that fluid was salty and was in contact with a potentially larger surface area, I don’t see how it would not have additional marinating affects through equilbration like glen talked about. Even if the liquid is expelled when vacuum released. Now in a bag that seems less clear. samspade Great food for thought. Thanks for posting. Jonathon Agree with this as a good future podcast topic.