Injection vs Marinade

[tony b]

Did some chicken legs quarters yesterday (sorry, no pics, pouring down rain right after I got the grill set up). My point is that instead of doing my usual marinade all day, I injected them with my marinades. I did 2 quarters, one Uncle Dougie's and one Big Bob Gibson's white sauce with sriracha. I did pour a little of what was left into the zip bags. So, I guess I did marinate the outside a little.  They sat in the fridge after injection for about 6 hours before going on to the KK - upper grate, direct, cherry wood, 375F (crept up to 400F when the storm came up), for an hour (30 minutes skin up, 30 minutes skin down).

 

I usually inject bigger cuts of meat (brisket, roasts, shoulders, etc.), but had not tried it before with smaller cuts like chicken pieces. I just wanted to say that this worked out great. Lots of flavor permeated the meat by injecting, just like I would have expected with the bigger cuts.Will now become standard technique going forward. 

 

One last plug for Uncle Dougie's marinade. It's a great wing marinade, but I like doing the bigger pieces in it, too. 

 

[ckreef]

Never injected chicken before. Will give it a try sometime.

[tony b]

I'm sold! 

 

I think it works because there are several muscle groups in the leg and thigh that allow the injected marinade to spread around between them; whereas a solid muscle piece, like say a porkchop, wouldn't work as well because the injected marinade has no place to go and will just pressurize and back out the injection site. Since this is just a hypothesis, I will have to try and inject a pork chop and see how well it works (or doesn't, if my hypothesis is correct!)

[mguerra]

Correct. Muscle tissue is dense, not a sponge, and any single muscle takes in very little of an injection. We have all had it squirt back out upon withdrawing the needle. If you have the patience to inject VERY slowly you can get the muscle to take a little more. Home injection involves using one needle repeatedly. Commercial preps use an enormous number of needles all at once and get more solution in than most of us would ever hope to achieve. Getting the injection in the interface between muscles might constitute sort of an internal marinade. Sometimes I think we talk ourselves in to believing injections are more efficacious than they really are. I still do it sometimes nonetheless.

[tony b]

He used efficacious in a blog post!