Marinades Part I - Easy on the Acids

This is a follow up article that I wrote for GetYourGrillOn.net.

We’ve all used the bottle of zesty italian dressing to marinade our chicken before grilling or smoking. In many of the BBQ books I own from well known and well respected barbeque experts, they all warn about using marinades if you don’t know how to use them. Great, but how do I use them?!?! A taboo that happens often is the use of high acid marinades… like our beloved italian dressing.

Marinades add flavor. We all know that. Marinades can also add moisture. Where many get in trouble is not understanding the affects of a marinade on the protein structures of the meat. Meat proteins can be “cooked” or denatured in two different ways: heat and acid. Heat is obvious, but acidic elements like citrus and vinegar change the proteins in a way similar to heat. This is seen in the white color of chicken breasts after they have sat in a high acid bath. This white color change is the outer protein of the meat being literally cooked after just an hour or two. Also consider the dish Ceviche from Peru which is raw seafood soaked in lemon and served cold. The texture of a Ceviche dish is more like a poached piece of meat than raw.

So why worry about high acid marinades? By cooking that outer layer of proteins with acid, you are about to cook them further with heat on your grill or in your smoking pit. Moisture will be lost. You maybe adding some flavor from the italian dressing, but you are creating a tougher piece of meat as well. Italian dressing, with all of its vinegar is a fine marinade, but your time should be short. Keep it to under two hours at the very most.

Come back for Marinades Part II to learn of some low acid alternatives that also act as natural tenderizers, too.