Marinated/Brined meats

[swamprb]

Do marinated or brined meats cook faster?

[eagle697]

I started brining and marinating meats a few years ago and don't recall any decrease in cooking time. I may be wrong though. I always use a cold brine or injection in cold meat though. If it were hot, it may speed things up, although I would be afraid that would put the internal temp in the danger zone too long.

[DaChief]

Brined Turkey seems to cook a bit faster. As this is the only thing I have ever brined...I don't have a lot of data here.

[Ron_L]

It seems like they do to me, but I haven't been able to find a reference that explains why.

[Divemaster]

Originally Posted by Ron_L

It seems like they do to me, but I haven't been able to find a reference that explains why.

Where is our Mad Scientist???

[jestridge]

Chicken does also country ham cooks very fast the salt does something to it i think cause it displace the water.

[swamprb]

I seem to notice that brined/marinated poultry cook sooner than just rubbed birds.

[qman]

In my experiance, brined meats do cook somewhat faster. I think, but cannot validate, that the higher water content speeds the transfer of heat to the interior of the meat.

As to marinated meats, if your marinade has a fairly high acid content, and penetrates into the meat [or fish, fowl, etc] to any extent, the answer is also yes. This is specially true with injected marinades. The acid starts "cooking" the meat before it ever hits the grate.

Just my .02

[SoEzzy]

Theoretically, (I think), brined meat should cook quicker and here's my reasoning.

Brining adds water to the meat.

Cooking adds heat energy to the water in the food, and the water transmits the heat better than in food with a lower water content, or higher air content

So the meat with higher water content, should cook quicker than meat with a lower water content, as it is more condusive to being thermally efficient!
.

[The Pickled Pig]

I don't know the answer but here's an excerpt from http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/brining.html#faster

Brined meat tends to cook faster than unbrined meat. Some people believe that the water added to meat through the brining process conducts more heat, resulting in a faster cooking time. The more likely cause, according to Robert L. Wolke in an e-mail to TVWB, is that the denatured meat proteins are partially "cooked" by the brining process, so the heat has less work to do and the meat cooks faster.
So, if you're used to cooking an unbrined chicken or turkey for a certain length of time, start checking the internal temp about 2/3 of the way into the normal cooking time.

[SoEzzy]

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/70/Brining

[Larry Wolfe]

I don't really know one way or the other, but I've heard brined birds cook faster. I would never smoke an unbrined turkey so it's hard for me to say. But I cook a lot of brined turkeys and I can pretty much time a 14-16lb turkey will take 5 and 1/2 hours cooking at 235* every time, not sooner, not longer, like clock work.