 Yeah, welcome back to the firewater cooking channel and today we're going to discuss some basic cooking principles here on our teaching Tuesday and what today we're going to talk about marinades brines cures and injections Okay guys, I want to discuss this because you get a lot of questions about this a lot of people Don't understand what marinade with the difference between a marinade is a different suit of brine wet brining dry brining Curing what it all means when to do this when to inject It's all it can be confusing But once you learn the basic principles of what each of these methods are you can kind of figure it out First of all, I'm going to reference an article in the description below that It's actually pretty good and explaining what marinades and brines do On amazing ribs calm and there's also going to be one on curing and what curing does as well so take a look down that for more detailed information, but First thing I'm going to talk about here is marinades because a lot of people Do that and probably more than anything so taking them, you know some kind of salad dressing like this This is it's a salad dressing and marinade or This is a moho marinade and what a marinade is it's just a mixture of oil vinegar spices Stuff like that that you soak your meat in To try to flavorize it to get it to get some more flavor to it One of the things that marinade does do is it will coat the entire surface of the meat that you're marinating it in It will not penetrate into the meat Whether it be chicken steak pork lamb Marinade is not something that is going to actually Suck up into the meat like a sponge meat is not a sponge No matter what kind of meat it is it won't suck it up into itself So you won't have moho flavor all the way through the meat if you cut a piece of the meat off and it's an inch thick You bite just into the middle of that if you cut off the outside You won't taste this marinade or this marinade or any kind of marinade because that's not what marinades actually do They coat the surface of the meat Some marinades do actually tenderize the meat if you use a lot of vinegar Sometimes if you use apple cider vinegar and particularly and with chicken or any other kind of protein that's You know poultry or fish it can affect the tenderness of the chicken just because the acid Will change the the cellular structure of the meat. It'll break it down But as far as getting the flavor of the marinade deep inside the protein it won't do that So I do like to marinate some things But like I said, you know, I have the impression if I'm going to marinate something It's primarily outside surface coating and there's nothing wrong with that because that's a good way to season your meat Now if just don't go into it under the impression that you're going to get if you have a two pound pork roast That's you know, three inches around like a pork loin You're not going to get that marinade flavor deep inside the meat unless you inject it So it's gonna primarily season the outside surface of the meat. So Okay, moving on let's go into what brines are Brines a little bit different than a marinade and there's two types of brines There are dry brines and then there are wet brines wet brines are more associated with Turkey or chicken you'll see people doing this for Thanksgiving because they'll try what you're trying to do with a brine As you're trying to infuse the meat with Moisture so that it doesn't dry out. So people will dry pork butts people are brine pork butts They'll brine brisket. They'll brine porkloins to try to Infuse more moisture into the meat so that when you're cooking it it takes a lot longer for it to dry out. So Wet brining is is exactly what it sounds like you mix salt and some different spices Into water and make sure that that's mixed in real well combined with the water. So you're making a salt water type basic brine and then you soak that meat in the brine in the refrigerator for any number of hours and then What that'll do is a salt will actually change the molecular structure and it will infuse salt deep and moisture deep into the meat Usually with brines though it won't take any of the other flavorings that you put in the brine with it the other seasonings like garlic or Pepper Anything like that and it's all just going to be a surface treatment The only thing that's actually going to penetrate deep into the meat is going to be the salt and moisture So that's one thing that people get confused on with wet brine or dry brine wet brines They're both More you know soaking it in the water where you have to actually put a bunch of salt into the water to Try to figure out how much salt you want to brine your your chicken or your poultry or your meat with Dry brines are a little bit different. They are exactly how they sound and you're just using a basic rub You can use it with barbecue rub Salt pepper garlic a lot of people will brine with just this or you know any kind of barbecue rub that has salt in it You're just rubbing it on the outside of the meat But what happens is once that salt and water mixed it in moisture mixed together It will actually go back into the steak because the salt will change the Cellular structure of that moisture and it will actually draw back into the protein So what ends up happening is same way with wet brining your Moisture you'll draw more moisture into or let it retain more moisture into the protein Salt will actually hold on to moisture when it's in the protein So although you're not soaking it in water trying to get more water into it You're actually helping it retain the water by adding salt into the protein. So that's how brines work Now curing It's a little bit different It's the same type of philosophy as a wine, but what you're trying to do with curing is you're trying to actually Change it to where it's a little bit more preserved where like with bacon or ham You can actually after you're done curing bacon or ham You can actually let it sit out for a while and not having to worry about it You know rotting because it's actually preserved and that's when you add this something either the pink pink salt or Something like this is called tender quick, which is actually it's a it's a different kind of salt It's a it's a nitrite sodium sodium nitrite instead of nitrate Which is regular salt is sodium nitrate. This is sodium nitrite and this is a lot more powerful than this kind of salt and what this will do is actually Change the cellular structure of the meat and to help preserve it So that's why you get that pink look on bacon and ham It's why it looks totally different than if you just brine the chicken You can actually get a different color when you use a nitrite. So And that's it now let's talk about injection injecting marinades or spices into meats You can actually buy, you know, one of these type of injectors on Amazon or eBay or what have you at your local store and what they do is actually get a couple different Needles with it you take some of your inject your Marinade and actually inject that into your meat Deep down into it and this is how you get some of that flavor from your marinades into your meat Since something like this is not going to penetrate deep into the To the meat you go ahead and you inject it. That's why a lot of people will do both They'll actually brine their chicken or turkey or poultry and then they'll actually inject it as well Because this will get more flavor down deep into the meat because you're actually putting the the actual marinade deep into the meat So you can get these for 10 20 bucks on Amazon. So they're pretty Pretty easy to use self-explanatory. The only thing you don't want to use when you're doing something With an injector you don't want to use any like big herbs or chunks of spices You want to make sure all your spices are actually diluted in the water so that they don't clog up your holes I usually use something like Chicken broth if I'm doing a turkey, I'll use chicken broth. Maybe a little orange juice or Lemon juice with some garlic Stuff like that garlic onion. Maybe a little salt Mix it up some, you know, put a little paprika in there But like I said, just make sure everything that you do use when you're injecting will actually Be deluded diluted into the water and mixed in real well so that you're not clogging up the holes of the injector So that's all I have about Marinades brines Injections and cures like I said check out the articles down below that will actually go into a lot more detail But that's pretty much the basic information on that. I hope it helps you guys Make sure you like this video subscribe. I'll be doing more of these teaching Tuesday little videos Every every Tuesday for the next month or so and if you have any questions Please go ahead and comment below if you have anything that you want me to cover in these videos comment below Find us on our Facebook group Facebook page and make sure you follow us on Instagram and Twitter and I'll see you in the next video