Hi everyone! You should come to OpenSauce, June 15-16 in San Francisco! I'll be there along with dozens of extremely cool and talented creators! It'll be amazing!!

Quick math: 15 psi over a square foot is literally a ton. To open that vacuum chamber at full vacuum would require a literal ton of force.

it would be interesting to see if a pressure chamber did anything

Another idea: Compare Vacuum marinated meat vs pressure marinated meat (putting the meat with marinade in a vacuum sealed bag, and putting the bag inside a pressure chamber).

I have a consumer vacuum chamber for marinading meat. It attaches to the accessory hose port on my food sealer. It works by cycling between pressured and unpressured states (i.e.: depressurizes, holds for several minutes, repressurizes, and repeats this cycle 3 or 4 times). I can’t say it works _better_ than just leaving meat in a marinade in the refrigerator - but it does seem to complete the same process much faster (15 minutes instead of hours).

I dont know if food coloring accurately shows marinade penetration as food coloring binds to protein but the marinade doesn't, so the food coloring and the marinade can separate when you put it on protein

The issue with your experiment that I see is that you must pull a vacuum with the meat submerged in the marinade multiple times in a row. For example pull the vacuum then let the pressure off as quickly as possible, then do it again for several times. Each time the marinade will get slammed a little deeper into the meat. Also using a carder type tenderizer tool to first pierce the meat many times over will make a huge difference in the marinade up take. Thanks Nate! A very interesting video. By the way the vacuum marinating machines in pro-kitchens do this very thing(multiple vacuum pulls and releases of pressure). I have seen this done before and the aromatics penetrate very deeply, color is harder to penetrate. Thanks again!

When I worked for Maple Leaf Foods, the process of making Pastrami deli meat included large steel rotating cylinders that used vacuum suction to stretch the meat so the spices and nitrates could penetrate deep in the meat, then we spiked them, hang them, cook to temp, cool, slice, packaged and shipped out.

"I've never tried that so that's why I'm doing this experiment today" God I love that mindset

I’d be interested in seeing the results after multiple hours, maybe even comparing the different methods at different time periods.

Marinades aren't known to be particularly effective after an hour. There's a reason it's typically 6-12 hours depending on tradition, and I'd wager that an hour isn't actually enough time for valid data.

I believe that the meat pieces, like the marshmallows, had a fair number of the inner cells burst resulting in texture differential. Only for the meat it was water being moved from a relative higher pressure to lower of the chamber. Which didn't really allow for salts to transfer in since there was a stronger force moving outwards. As for the beef being more tender, similar principle of water being pulled out of the cells. It would be interesting to see the meat thing done again, only this time weight prior to vacuum and then again after to see if there's a appreciable difference.

I wonder if the vacuum caused the cells to rupture. It would be interesting to compare the vacuum chicken/beef to one that got freezer burn.

Biochemical Engineer here: The cell membranes in the meats have ruptured from the vacuum, releasing the juices into the space between the cells, causing a rubbery texture as you eat the deflated cell membranes. I would suggest trying to pressurize the meat (maybe 10 bars) to push the marinade into the tissue (inside of the meat will be at lower pressure than the outside of the meat because of the cell membranes

You totally missed out on a massive opportunity to simply put holes in the meat with a fork. In my experience using a vacuum chamber and doing it right, it basically equates to 1 minute of punctured meat being as marinated as a whole day just sitting in the marinade. Beer marinated bratwurst in a chamber are incredible too because they aren't such a solid piece of meat. When you let the pressure back in with bratwurst, you can see all the marinade squirting out as they shrink back down.

Great video, as usual. One point of note... "Marinate" is the verb that food soaking in a marinade, "Marinade" is a noun that refers to the liquid or sauce used for marinating.

The weird texture on the 3rd steak and chicken samples is from the same thing that happened to the marshmallows. Under vacuum, the cell walls rupture, just like the air bubbles in the marshmallow. The longer the vacuum exposure, the more cells rupture, the worse the texture. This is how there is more penetration of the marinade, even if slightly. It's the same thing that happens when meat is frozen slowly and thawed quickly - cell walls rupture from water freezing, and you get a weird squishy texture. Get a microscope and do this again. Thank Alton Brown for explaining this to me in an episode of Good Eats a long time ago.

Vacuum infusion only works with porous materials with air pockets, like wood being stabilized with infused resin. The best vacuum infusion food recipe I've come up with is watermelon infused with fresh squeezed lime juice. I got the vacuum infusion idea from the NY Times website, where there's a video of cucumber being vacuum infused with a martini.

Really good editing on this video, Nate. Tight script, succinct, entertaining. Keep up the good work!

I remember, as a kid, my mom had a food saver vacuum saver. It had an attachment for mason jars or mason jar like vessels that you could use to “vacuum save” items in jars or as the infomercial advertised shorten marination times of meats.

I’m honestly so happy you almost have 1mil, you and Cass seriously did amazing on TKR and actually made it educational.

Enjoyed this experiment! Anything with food is a plus for me, cooking & baking are just an edible form of chemistry

I gave up asking people to try this stuff years ago. Thanks for working on it!

"Bright blue, just like Mom used to make it" Percy Jackson?!

What if you put the marinade in a 100psi pressure pot? Maybe the hige pressure air will infuse the meat more. Or you could also put the meat in a hydraulic chamber with no air, but 3000psi of liquid pressure.

6:40 I do a lot of home canning, you don't need the ring once the lid seals. The ring is just there to keep the lid in place BEFORE it seals. Matter of fact, with canned foods, you SHOULD remove the ring. If the canned food isn't perfectly preserved and something alive in there starts spoiling and producing gas, eventually it'll pop the seal and the lid will come off. But if the ring is still in place holding the lid on, it'll form a false-seal, and you've now got yourself a jar of botulism probably. So here's something I'd like to try. Take raw meat and just straight up freeze dry it. Pull out all the moisture while keeping the structure intact. Then pressure-cook it in a bowl of marinade, and see how THAT works.

its called the 15 min. marinader vacuum and i absolutely love it and use it almost everytime i cook and not one person i have ever served food to complains or even notices the texture on all meats

My father made a kind of low vacuum/pressure chamber out of a Sam’s club pickle jar and a hand pump that he used to switch between adding pressure & and taking it away. He said it helps the fibers “push & pull” apart to let the marinade get between them. He would spend hours marinating everything overnight changing between the low & higher pressure. He swears by it but I think it’s more likely the fact that he used one of those meat tenderizer blade things on anything he put in there 🤷‍♀️

My vacuum bag sealer is a vacuum chamber. You put the bag in the chamber with the opening between heating elements. The chamber is pulled down to a pretty good vacuum, the bag gets sealed, then the vacuum is released.

The preasure of the pressure chamber changes the boiling point of liquids and changes the stability of compounds it also won't infuse flavour unless you do a proper vacuum infusion like prepreg infusion. Chicken is a very easy to break down protein so it's not recommended for this type of experiment

Would love a nfti and Adam collab

i use vacuum marinading when i make beef jerky. i have found that the marinade flavor seems to have better penetration and a more consistent flavor throughout instead of the flavor just being on the surface of the meat. but that's just my experience.

instead of pulling out the air after instant vacuum in the chamber, you should let it suck air for those marinating hour, bc my theory is the instant vacuum that you're pulling from the chamber is basically the same as the vacuum sealer

If the mechanism is the vacuum release forcing the marinade into the meat, then what you want to do is cycle the pressure. Also, if the vacuum is tenderizing the beef, maybe you should try it on a very tough cut. Something like what would usually be ground.

Bro casually cooks perfect chicken breasts for an experiment

FoodSaver makes and sells "chambers" specifically for marinading and brining. What you might be interested to try - something I use to great effect - corning or brining meat longer-term with curing salts in a vacuum chamber. Once you add the curing salt, it completely changes it. I'll usually corn or brine a a cut of beef for a week in a chamber, and then finish off the final 24 hours with the curing salts added. For your acid, pyrolytic works the best.

Guga would be proud!

Install a larger dump valve in the lid and you can simulate removing the lid under vacuum.

Hey Nate, I know I’m a little late to this one, but it makes much sense that the steak is more tender because the primary purpose of a marinade is to tenderize the meat. The flavour is just secondary so when you pulled the vacuum on that piece of meat was able to tenderize it faster same way you can make dill picklesin a vacuum chamber in about 15 minutes instead of the weeks, it takes to do it without the vacuum chamber

So the pink color in cured meats comes from the nitrates in the curing salt binding to the myoglobin in the meat and the pink smoke ring comes from nitrous oxide from the incomplete combustion of the wood binding to the myoglobin. I'd be interested in see you use your vacuum chamber to remove the ambient air and fill the chamber with nitrous oxide to see if you could either make a fake smoke ring or completely cure the meat.

What if you need to do multiple vacuum cycles to let the air out of the meat then the marinade in to replace it?

Marinades are usually done from any where 4-12 hours because it takes time for the marinade to really work plus you need salt to help with the osmotic action which helps the marinade to penetrate as well as deepen the flavor because well salt. Try it again with those variables in mind.

One flaw in this experiment is on the observation side of how the marinade actually affects the food. Most people believe that it puts liquid/flavor inside the meat and more time will make better flavors. But like Nate said it creates a barrier around the surface of the meat, locking moisture and enzymes that make the meat tender and juicy when you eat it. Marinades do not tenderize the meat itself. Marinades ability to seal in moisture is its strength. So what if we cook it in the marinade? The quick answer is that the sugars will caramelize and burn before the meat cooks thoroughly. Burnt on the outside, raw in the middle. So what if we reduce the sugar and cook it in a higher moisture environment (boiling/steaming)? Without a barrier to stop moisture from leaving the meat, like what happens when you are searing the meat, more moisture leaves the meat than is introduced to it and it becomes dry and sometimes mealy in texture. So circling back to the beginning what a marinade does, like Nate said, is creating a flavorful barrier to hold the good stuff inside. For best results 4 to 6 hours is good but longer than 24 hours and you're not marinating it your preserving it. It will dry out and get like leather. Also don't use guava in your marinade because it will dissolve the meat

All these food experiments make me hungry. I'd even eat the blue chicken.

My guess is the vacuum chamber applies an almost stretched force on the meat while marinating. And since bird meat has more collagen than cow meat, and it doesn't break down in acid as quickly that's likely what's being left behind and making it feel gummy while the beef just breaks apart.

Marinating also uses the process of osmosis. Depending on the level of salinity, adding moisture to a piece of meat, and possibly carrying flavor in to it as well. I would do the test a second time, also using a brine solution.

The knowledge that de-pressurized meat is squishier is helpful for scientists trying to “grow” edible meat in cultures. In other words, the meat may require some special “pressurization” to more-resemble traditional meat.

Nyquil chicken vibes 💀

I wouldn't be surprised if the tenderness has more to do with the mechanical stresses that the meat fibers experienced in the cycling of vacuum and much less to do with marinade exposure. A good way to test that is to see what happens with a marinaded piece of meat in the vacuum chamber vs. one that was cycled through vacuum and then marinaded afterwards; maybe also throw in one piece that was cycled multiple times before marination just to see if it's really all about the vacuum action.

My guess is the vacuum is pulling down the acid through the meat, and also my guess would be the denser the meat fibres the more difficult it would be to pull the marinade. I would love to see this in a longer time scale

I imagine the vacuum chamber ruptured and separated the cells and fibers of the muscle, leading to the different texture. As many others have pointed out, both the method and time would probably have a bigger impact if changed. Trying a longer time and comparing it with high pressure instead of low pressure would likely have more interesting results. Another comment i liked suggested that using the vacuum chamber and then after a short time repressurizing it repeatedly might have a more significant impact, but again I'd be worried about the texture, especially at that extreme of a vacuum.

I think you missed the principal behind the vacuum, marinating in a vacuum bag lets you use less marinade and make sure every available surface is covered and you can store it for longer easily.

I always use a vacuumbag because you need a bit less marinade. And it will also prevent meat from floating on above the liquid.

Almost all marinated industrially made chicken is vacuum tumbled to 28psi for between 10min and 1 hour depending if it is a membrane cut or a nonmembrane cut. Everything from chick fila to walmart pre marinated packages are done this way. Ideal temp is between 25-35f. Tumbler rpm can vary a lot by bone in vs boneless, membrane vs nonmembrane and the type of marination. The internal flights of the tumbler can vary too by angle. You can absorb 10-15% more marination by weight with proper tumble for surface area and vacuum. More with soy based marination.

Great video Nate.

Vacuums lower the boiling point of liquid. So the marinades done in an actual vacuum will cause the outer layer of meat to lose some of it's moisture. Yes it was in a marinade but the direction that the liquid travels between the marinade and the meat is reversed. So while you would get the flavor the texture would alter significantly.

Vacuum bag -> Pressure chamber. Also interesting: vacuum bag > ultrasonic cleaner on low setting in ice bath < on high you cook it. And an hour isn't nearly enough for any results.

Nate, you could try adding an electronic valve like a solenoid to the top with a separate, larger hole to allow a large, more instantaneous release of air in place of lifting the top off.

An idea for a future video. Trying different methods to tenderize meat and see if that makes a difference in anything.

I always stab the hell out of meat with a fork before marinating. All those tiny channels seem to allow flavor to penetrate deeper and all the holes pretty much tighten and seal back up during cooking.

I’ll say, whatever the result, bro cooked those chicken breasts to PERFECTION

Science based steak experiments? Yes please. Which ones? All of them. Actually propane vs charcoal vs wood to see which is more tender and juicy.

Very cool video Nate, btw the cook on the steaks looks SO good.

The ultimate Percy Jackson meal!! 😂😂😂

Those poor Smurfs.

With that experiment of Adam's how do you know that the food coloring can penatrate the meat? I watched his video a while ago, so maybe he addressed this. It could be possible that the food coloring can't go that deep, but things like salt can.

Does a marinade penetrate and taste different via tenderizer {Thor's hammer with spikes, vs stabs via fork} also what's usually suggested 4 hours vs overnight!

I work with pressure chambers in my company. I have noticed, that only applying a partial vacuum is not sufficient in my filed. In some of our applications, we have to pressure cycle. So basically applying a vacuum and afterwards slight overpressure. Since you only have a vacuum chamber, releasing and re-applying the vacuum might have a similar effect. (Cycling it in 1hour steps should be good)

Lime can cook your chicken too adding to the weird texture. An increase in atmospheric pressure may yield better marinade results.

You should talk to Guga about a collaboration. He has done some experiments with tenderizing steak. It's time for him to add vacuum chamber to his tenderization techniques. Maybe do one for 10 minutes, one for 10 hours, and one for 10 days? I'd watch it! I wonder how it compares to pineapple juice.

If I had to guess the vacuum chamber is causing gasses dissolved in the meat liquids to expand and come out of solution. These expanding gasses are trapped inside the meat and this might end up rupturing cell walls or stretching meat fibers. This is my speculation as to why there's a tenderization effect.

I have a pressure pot I used for resin stabilizing wood blanks. It can pull a vacuum and then push about 60 psi. I should clean it out and see how the switch hit of vac-press works on it.

Think about it. A vacuum causes marshmallows to expand. A vacuum causes a vacuum bag to collapse. So if you put marshmallows in a vacuum bag and pulled a vacuum on it, the marshmallows would try to expand at the same time the vacuum bag is trying to squash them. It is logical to presume that the apposing forces would equalize at some point. In this case, the marshmallows looked like they were squeezed a little bit but not much.

Should’ve done a blind taste test to see which one worked better.

we miss you ... please make more videos. we really enjoy them, thank you

I wish you had used a vacuum chamber sealer as well. I know it's pretty close to a normal vacuum chamber but I have never noticed a texture difference and I do taste a difference when marinating in a bag using it.

We have to see a eye round with guga sous vide, inside of a vacuum chamber under vacuum for the entire cook and then again pressure say up to 30 psi

I’ve done this for years with my chamber you should do something like caribou it interesting how the meat expands and changes color it also boils the water at room temperature and breaks all the cells and it stays expanded when I released the pressure.

I’m so glad you’re still making interesting videos. Thanks for posting.

Percy Jackson approves of that chicken 😂

My understanding of stabilizing (the resin method you compared the camber marinade to), is that you have to leave the object in the liquid for 2x the time in was under vacuum, to allow the liquid to get full penetration. Maybe that was a factor for the color test.

If I understand correctly, vac-bags are more used to prevent oxidation and spoilage; meaning it can be stored for longer and not suffer "Freezer-Burn" I have a FoodSaver(tm), and that's what I use when I make a bulk shopping trip. The unit I have does have a sous vide setting, but I have yet to try it.

We need to send this experiment to Guga and have him do it properly.

It’d be interesting to see if *vacuum cycles* do something different, kind of like what you do with resins. Thinking being that might actually infuse the marinade in the meat.

Maaan I see a new nfti video right before bed?! Time to do some in the field testing on sleep depravation I guess lol

Fascinating that the texture changed. Never would have thought of this, but it makes sense possibly due to cellular rupture?

Good ol amplified chewing and throat noise

The texture was different because you basically boiled the meat in the vacuum chamber. The lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point.

The 'liquid' problem is why I eventually just bought a chamber vacuum sealer. On the plus side, the bags are significantly cheaper.

would have loved another container where it marinades under pressure

My vacuum sealer (foodsaver 5000 series) has an add-on and operation mode that is supposed to help quick pickling. I use it, but I haven't done any testing against a control. The add-on is basically a rigid vacuum chamber, but the magic is supposedly the operation mode. It pulls a vacuum, holds it for a few minutes, releases and then pulls another vacuum. It does three cycles over about 12 minutes. I think the idea is to use the pressure release to pump the marinade/pickling solution into the food. Maybe you could try to replicate this with your vacuum chamber to see if the idea is valid, or if it's just a marketing gimmick. See if it works for marinades, quick pickle on veggies, and ceviche. After this video, I'm skeptical that it is anything more than a marketing gimmick...

You should try to cycle the vacuum. Texas Distillers have a tough time aging their spirits because of the temperature fluctuation between day and night, forcing spirits in and out of the barrels via expansion and contraction. A 5 year age in some cases can be similar to a 20 year age in a stable environment. This same idea could be tested in with your marinade, sucking the air out and letting it return on a cycle.

I was surprised this wasn’t a Guga Foods ad for his new vacuum marinade thing, but then I got to the results and knew why. 😂

I feel like you should have done four hours with the vacuum chamber for the steak, it would been interesting to see a longer process would change the affect of the meat even more

A followup on this would be cool. Maybe longer times. Try 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours maybe. Also maybe try a pressure pot. Sort of like a vacuum chamber but instead of pulling a vacuum you add pressure to it could force the marinade into the meat better. Also, the texture change is interesting. As far as I know the main use of vacuum marinators is to make jerky so the texture change might not matter as much there or it might even help it since it made the beef more tender

My question now is what happens if you bring the chamber to a vacuum, release the vacuum, and repeat it a few times rather than holding vacuum consistently to try and encourage the drawing of the marinade as the chamber regains pressure.

Hypothesis: the change in texture is caused by the water in the meat boiling off due to the lower pressure.

Interested in this one.

We've seen vacuum food. What about apply large amounts of pressure? Pull a vacuum, then apply pressure. Maybe 100psi?

The vacuum probably caused the cell walls of the meat to rupture. Turns out outer space is not a good way to tenderize your chicken.