Reason for the plateau in meat


 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Biesinger, I’m sorry if my light hearted answer or attempted humor offended you, had I known it was going to get so deep I wouldn’t have stepped in it and left it for “the experts” to come to a more educated answer. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

no offense taken. Its just that I'm a tad sore from a previous thread that was intended to be technical and ended up getting a bunch of "don't over think it, its just bbq" comments. The whole turned into a debate about the merits of science and cooking, rather than the intended topic.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Hmm.I've blurbed back and forth with Nathan a few times on other topics years ago on eGullet and respect his views (though I quit my support of the site because of their endless editing and consolidation of threads - which they think is helpful, but I do not).

Perhaps it is semantics. I do agree with the wet bulb view, but I would not call it 'evaporation' that causes the phenomenon in this circumstance because it is internal. I don't think I have a single word for it.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm with you. The promote the fact that their sous vide thread is like 150 pages of comments now, but its completely useless due to the multiple conversations that are occurring simultaneously (like this one on wet bulbs but in the sous vide thread).

Man, I got a million thoughts in my head about this wet bulb hypothesis. Something just doesn't seem right about either explanation.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by j biesinger:
Ok, I've took some time and read the complete thread and have been thinking about this for a few days so this stuff has had some time to ferment in my brain.

The hypothesis that the stall is related to evaporation and not tissue breakdown is pretty revolutionary. I'm almost willing to buy into it, however I have some serious questions:

1) I had a brisket stall hard in the high 150's, so after about an hour of no temp increases, I foiled it and it continued to stall for another 30-45 min. I thought the environment inside the foil would be 100% RH and therefore wet bulb = dry bulb. Shouldn't foil correct the stall?

2) Mopping is a common practice that will keep the surface moist throughout the duration of the cook. Shouldn't mopping extend the stall indefinitely? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

For more authoritative answers, I would recommend you pose your questions on the eGullet forums in that thread (alternatively I can if you would like), but here are my thoughts on your 1.) and 2.)

1.) Chances are the foil pouch is not airtight. So I would imagine it would take some time for the interior of the pouch to steam up enough to reach and maintain 100% humidity.

2.) Unless you have an auto mopper that _constantly_ mops the meat, the mop liquid would dry out quite quickly once the surface has reached the dried/dessicated stage. i.e. as soon as the tiny amount of liquid you have mopped on dries, the heat continues to penetrate the surface and raise the internal temperature.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Man, I got a million thoughts in my head about this wet bulb hypothesis. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I think of it this way: In very simplified terms for illustrative purposes, the therm (in the beginning) is in 'drier' tissue. At the critical point, there is a rush (if you will) of released moisture/renderings which cause the therm to be in more of a wet bulb scenario, stalling the rise - or even causing it to fall.

I must admit that, to me, this is one of the less interesting food science phenomenon. I do not normally temp internals as I cook. I did so for a while several years ago, so that I could write about it, mostly here on this board, but it is not the way I cook (nor did I care for it at all during that period). The Maverick I bought back then sits mostly unused in a drawer, appearing only for very low/slows, such as for bacon, but I still don't bother with the meat probe.
 
I guess the proof would be in seeing the stall temp match the wet bulb temp.

I'm curious how they used the DCS. Nathan claims that the sous vide meat doesn't show a stall. But I wonder how they could replicate a roasting environment where the temps are significantly higher than your finish temp with a water bath (maybe in a CVAP?). Here's what I'm thinking:

say you take a brisket, bag it so its 100% RH, and drop it in a temp controlled water bath that's 160*F. Its going to take a longer time to get to the finish temp and during the long cook, maybe the phase changes are occurring at a slow enough rate that no stall appears.

Now in the bbq, the internal temp of the meat will go up much faster, and the rate of phase changes will increase exponentially, and at some point they should come to a head and stall the internal temp increase.

I guess if Nathan is assuming that a temp controlled water bath at 160* is the same as a bbq smoker with a wet bulb of 160* then his data should be relevant.

The Phase change hypothesis could be supported by data that shows the length of the stall is related to cook temp. If we cook L/S we should see shorter stalls (or no stalls) because the phase changes have all been completed by the time you reach 160*. As opposed to HH where we should see a significant stall because the meat gets up to temp before the bulk of the phase changes occurred.
 
One thing I forgot: The phenomenon, in my experience, seems to occur with more loosely structured meat (brisket, chuck, butt) and not with denser, more finely grained meat, which, imo, supports the wet bulb hypothesis in my simplified version noted above.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I must admit that, to me, this is one of the less interesting food science phenomenon. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I suppose you're right. However, I was complacent thinking the Phase Change Hypothesis was 100% correct, and now its been seriously undermined. I got to work through this mini-revolution in my brain, I'll be fine once I take a few more biased observations that support the Wet Bulb Hypothesis
icon_wink.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top