If I can find a clean jar, with a lid, the right size I now have an experiment to try. I have a small vacuum pump and will try to see if I can use it to infuse marinade deep into a piece of chicken. The marinade will be garlic and red food colouring - the latter to see how deep the marinade has got into the meat when I slice it whilst still raw!
Place the chicken and marinade in the jar, fit the lid (which has a pinprick hole in it) place the rubber sucker attached to the pump over that hole and suck the air out. Leave for a while, the marinade should replace any air, or fluid, sucked out of the chicken, then let the air back in.
Keeping notes and photographs of course. If it looks promising will try at different times under vacuum.
The hand vacuum pump is the type used to bleed car brake systems. Since it also pumps things up I may try pressure infusion - then vacuum followed by pressure. That's if I can find a safe pressure vessel with an opening big enough to get the chicken pieces in. Don't fancy trying to hand pressurise, or depresurise, the 5ltr pressure cooker with a 25cc hand pump. Even with a good quantity of water in it as well as the jar - amazing amount of gas gets dissolved in tap water!
Hey, if I can find a big enough 12V power supply I can use the electric tyre inflator!
Might be eating a lot of coloured chicken in the next couple of weeks!
Interesting.
That sounds like a good idea. I don't think different times under vacuum will make a big difference, because I'm guessing that the marinade will only migrate into the meat when air is allowed back into the chamber. When you evacuate the air out of the chamber, the meat will degas. It's only when the pressure returns to normal that the liquid will be pushed into the meat by the air pressure. Perhaps the meat will stay more compact, and therefore less tender than before.
I look forward to see what happens.
Setup in use.
(https://i.imgur.com/bw3X8zQ.jpg)
I cut the piece of chicken on two, (1) 90g and (2) 70g.
Marinade 1/4 tsp garlic granules, 1 tsp food colour (1) 2tsp volour (2) in small amount of warm water for five minutes to hydrate garlic.
Chicken piece (1) added, water added to cover. Lid on, air sucked out to -0.5bar
Small amount of fine froth.
Left for 10minutes.
Result: not much penetration of colour. When two halves fried in olive oil until browned nice and tender and garlic flavour well noticeable. Funny colour on cooking, some parts bluish.
(https://i.imgur.com/wetLqTJ.jpg)
Piece (2): another tsp colour added to original marinade (yeah, should have made new one . . .)
No new froth, suggests first was water and garlic degassing.
1 hour at 0.5b. (Afraid to go to 1bar without tested vessel, and gets bloody hard work pumping the more you pump out - memory says amount extracted per stroke is exponentially inverse to the "hardness" of the vacuum. Thus many more strokes per 0.1bar drop at 0.9bar compared to 0.5bar. I will have a grip like a gorilla if I do this every day for a week!)
And, later, I realised that I had changed two variables - naughty! Must write out spec and methodology and do it again! Good thing I like chicken.
More colour in (2) obviously, but no more penetration than before, suggesting you were right, Hermes.
(https://i.imgur.com/OBiX4Ri.jpg)
When fried colours well, that might be a function of the food colour. Not easy to see here but the striations of the mucle fibres are "picked out". Garlic taste stronger but that might be because marinade was "aging" and 6x longer time in marinade! I cannot remember the garlic taste surviving frying this well before.
Will do controls with same marinade and times but no vacuum. Considering similar trials with pears in red wine, cheese in port (oh, dear, I will need to buy a bottle of port, what a shame) And fish in something. And punching holes into chicken . . .
Heston Blumenthal would be proud of me!
(https://i.imgur.com/oMitl7G.jpg)
OK, method should be:
Make marinade, divide into two containers, one being the vacuum vessel.
Cut subject material into two equal sized pieces, A and B.
Place one piece in each vessel.
Evacuate vacuum vessel.
Give both samples same time.
Cut both in half to check for penetration.
If appropriate cook all samples in same manner.
Compare samples by eating a small piece of A followed by a small piece of B.
Repeat above cleansing the pallet before and between.
Repeat with longer time.
Dave is herewith nominated to be the chief researcher for the sciences of odd ball culinary projects. Who knows? we may have a pioneer in our midst. I do suspect that some of the more inquisitive commercial microbiologists have addressed this kind of thinking. Only god knows whatever kind of stuff those wizards at Nestle, ConAgra, Campbell, and others have dreamed up.
In any case, Dave is our guy and his experiments are to be respected as legitimate research.
Quote from: Icarus on August 12, 2018, 01:55:57 AM
Dave is herewith nominated to be the chief researcher for the sciences of odd ball culinary projects. Who knows? we may have a pioneer in our midst. I do suspect that some of the more inquisitive commercial microbiologists have addressed this kind of thinking. Only god knows whatever kind of stuff those wizards at Nestle, ConAgra, Campbell, and others have dreamed up.
In any case, Dave is our guy and his experiments are to be respected as legitimate research.
Why, thank you, Icarus. We each do our thing. My thing just seems to gets out of its box occasionaly. The method is almost certainly not unique, it's just the touch of madness that gives it the edge!
I would have thought that positive pressure would be more likely to increase the penetration of the marinade than a vacuum. However, I think this is an interesting experiment. And if unexpected results occur, then so much the better!
Very interesting work so far, Dave. Your setup looks well thought out and quite scientific!
I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).
The problem with the port is: what to do with any unused port after the experiment?
Quote from: Bluenose on August 12, 2018, 04:24:52 AM
I would have thought that positive pressure would be more likely to increase the penetration of the marinade than a vacuum. However, I think this is an interesting experiment. And if unexpected results occur, then so much the better!
My thinking was, based on testing equipment enclosure seals and impregnating equipment with adhesive or silicon at work, if you apply pressure you tend to close cavities, preventing the whatever getting in. Evacuation de-gasses the whole thing, item and medium, allowing full penetration on the reapplication of atmospheric pressure.
With pressure cooking it is slightly different, like squeezing a sponge held under water, then relaxing it. Now, "pressure" cooking whilst under vacuum . . .
Quote from: hermes2015 on August 12, 2018, 05:08:42 AM
Very interesting work so far, Dave. Your setup looks well thought out and quite scientific!
I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).
The problem with the port is: what to do with any unused port after the experiment?
I did think of sharpening the end of a thin wall plated 4mm OD brass tube I have to make open "tunnels" through the meat.
And yes, the left over port is going to present a problem that needs sober (if not for very long) consideration.
New entries, at numbers 3 and seven, in methodology:
Make marinade, divide into two containers, one being the vacuum vessel.
Cut subject material into two equal sized pieces, A and B.
Weigh each piece.
Place one piece in each vessel.
Evacuate vacuum vessel.
Give both samples same time.
Reweigh each piece to check for weight gsin,
Cut both in half to check for penetration.
If appropriate cook all samples in same manner.
Compare samples by eating a small piece of A followed by a small piece of B.
Repeat above cleansing the pallet before and between.
Quote from: hermes2015 on August 12, 2018, 05:08:42 AM
I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).
This roller would make the job of pricking it very easy.
(https://i.imgur.com/0c0IKzN.jpg)
QuoteNow, "pressure" cooking whilst under vacuum . . .
Just realised the problem there, low air pressure reduces the boiling point of water - maybe it will never cook! But, if one had a vessel with a seal that could stand high temp - like one made out of the 250C silicon rubber roasting sheet I have - a sort of combined "pot-roast/steam-cook under vacuum" might be achieved.
OTOH there is an enigma here: the water boiling at less than atmopheric will cause some re-presurisation in the sealed cooking vessel. But that should increase the water's boiling point so will an equilibrum be acheived?
I know that cooking involves the application of science and its principles but this is getting . . . Something!
I need a glass pressure cooker with pressure/vacuum spigots.
If you vacuum bag the chicken with the marinade and par cook it before a final sear you may get the result you want.
Quote from: jumbojak on August 12, 2018, 06:40:28 PM
If you vacuum bag the chicken with the marinade and par cook it before a final sear you may get the result you want.
That's approaching sous-vide cooking, which is often used in by professional chefs.
Quote from: hermes2015 on August 12, 2018, 06:53:49 PM
Quote from: jumbojak on August 12, 2018, 06:40:28 PM
If you vacuum bag the chicken with the marinade and par cook it before a final sear you may get the result you want.
That's approaching sous-vide cooking, which is often used in by professional chefs.
@ JJ
Now that sounds interesting. I don't think it will increase the penetration but I like the idea of "cook in the bag" to retain alll the juices and flavours - without cooking it all the way through in fat in a frying pan. One variation for me is to cook in tge pan in some sort of marinade, just soy sauce, garlic granules and pepper if I am being lazy, then add a little olive oil towards the end and wind the heat up to give it colour. The sugars in the soy sauce brown off nicely.
I have some heat proof bags, might try a few ideas.
@Hermes
I had heard of those devices, doubt that I will invest in one though. Given variations in the meat quality it seems the best way, keep as many constants in the equation as possible to get confident results. Hmm, I have a stainless steel K-type thermocouple probe, an industrial quality temperature controller and a 60A solid state switch somewhere. Wonder if I can get into the hob wiring . . . Needs a stirrer though.
As to the tire inflator you could probably use either a battery charger or one of those mini jump packs that can be had rather cheaply. What's the amp draw on a 12v compressor?
Quote from: jumbojak on August 12, 2018, 08:53:02 PM
As to the tire inflator you could probably use either a battery charger or one of those mini jump packs that can be had rather cheaply. What's the amp draw on a 12v compressor?
My ancient battey charger (a veteran of 40 years) drops right off when I connect the inflator to it. We tried to see if it would drive an airbrush. It does if you use it by the car to inflate a tyre then use that as a "portable air reservoir"! I know someone with a decent foot pump if I can connect that safely to the pressure cooker - including guage and safety release valve etc.
The less free space, the more liquids and solids, in the cooker the easier to reach pressure and the less explosive. We tested up to 4000psi at work, but with the smallest possible air volume. And in a strong tank full of water.
Depending on the pressure you're trying to reach a Mityvac could work well for you if you have the hand strength. I have one that came in a cooling system test kit that works fairly well. It's a small piston though so large volumes of air take a lot of pumps to pressurize. Some models can either pull vacuum or apply pressure.
Quote from: jumbojak on August 12, 2018, 09:35:23 PM
Depending on the pressure you're trying to reach a Mityvac could work well for you if you have the hand strength. I have one that came in a cooling system test kit that works fairly well. It's a small piston though so large volumes of air take a lot of pumps to pressurize. Some models can either pull vacuum or apply pressure.
The device I have is a variation on the same theme as the Mityvac. It's in that picture I posted of the setup , and I mentioned the numbersbof strokes needed. Guessing the cylinder stroke is about 25cc by how much water it sucks up a tube. It can also provide 3bar pressure but I would not want to take even a litre to that with it! My pressure cooker normally works at one bar, dunno what its ultimate safe limit is.
Just had a "re-use" idea that works!
I often cook corn-on-the-cob in a plastic bag in the microwave - steaming it. The bag then gets thrown away of course, it's a small, very thin food bag but still . . . Bags kill worms, as I was told.
Sitting on the drainer was a plastic jar, with a plastic lid, that once had chocolste powder in it. I have three of theses but have recycled many more.
White, semi-translucent plastic they look like you could put LED lights in them, or store stuff in them in the freezer.
Then I thought, make a small hole in the lid, put the corn into it the jar with a teaspoonful of water, screw lid on and stick in microwave for 2 minutes. . . .
Works great, nice tender steamed corn.
No reason a glass jar with a plastic lid would not work, but you need to let it cool or use a towell opening it.
As usual, Dave is an inventive individual. Keep on thinking Dave.