Injecting While Cooking

[Barbeque-HTF]

Who's tried injecting large cuts (e.g. pork shoulder, brisket) during cooking? Does it improve moisture or flavor? What are your thoughts?

[Donw]

Never tried it.
Personally a good dry brine works well for me in helping with moisture, especially with a pork butt. I haven’t injected brisket in years, but when I did, I saw it as just a way to get salt down deep into the muscles so it could do its magic. I know other believe strongly in injecting before the cook and if I was doing competition cooking I might go back to it to gain some edge, but I wouldn’t do it after the cook has started. I’ll be interested in what other think.

[bbqLuv]

To inject or not is a "3-hour argument!"--Harry Soo.
I wonder if injecting with PBR would work?
Injecting during the cook, interesting idea. Before, after, or no the wrap?

[glitchy]

Are you injecting the protein or the cook himself/herself with PBR?

[Barbeque-HTF]

I'm thinking about this before the wrap. I thought it might get some water & salt into the meat later preparing it for the finale cooking time.

[Jerod Broussard]

Whatever you put in is coming right out at that point. Go see if you can find a video of someone doing just that, if you can't, there's a reason.

[klflowers]

I bought this fancy needle set up and I used it exactly once to inject a brisket. Before the cook. It made a slight difference. I need to try it again.

[klflowers]

glitchy, it is really similar to this, but I think I paid closer to $30 for it several years ago:

https://smile.amazon.com/Stainless-Injector-Marinade-Professional-1Cleaning/dp/B0897K81JW/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_4368549507?_encoding=UTF8&hvadid=459497558379&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009564&hvnetw=g&hvpone=&hvpos=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvrand=7497033606451190114&hvtargid=pla-944913502511&ie=UTF8&linkCode=df0&psc=1&tag=hyprod-20

[glitchy]

When you said fancy, I pictured this:

https://www.amazon.com/Chops-Power-Injector-System-Gallon/dp/B00D3PWBUQ

They used to advertise on The BBQ Central Show and I looked at it a few times before I totally quit injecting the last couple years.

[klflowers]

Wow that is fancy glitchy.

[jfmorris]

I feel that a good cut of meat shouldn't need injection. If you are cooking something that isn't well marbled, and is not a fatty cut like brisket or a Boston butt, maybe it is worth pursuing. I can see injecting the breast of a turkey for example, since it is lean meat. I used to have an injection kit somewhere around here, but never used it, so I think its long gone, and I'm not missing it. If you dry brine, it goes a long way to helping flavor and retain moisture in the meat.

[glitchy]

I've tried it a few times pre-cook, mostly with purchased injections and in poultry. On birds it seemed to help some with the lack of flavor in the center of the meat you can sometimes get, but what I found was generally pockets of flavor. There's definitely an art to continually moving the needle as the injection doesn't seem to travel from where it lands and spread much at all. As well creating a 'pattern' to follow to efficiently cover the entire thing. The biggest problem I had was the injector I bought. The needle had multiple holes and when you started moving it while injecting, it sprayed everywhere as a couple of the holes were pretty close to the base of the needle.

In the end I found it messy and not worth the time and effort involved at that time. I probably need to revisit it sometime with some homemade injections and on something like a choice brisket flat or something and using a different injector with only holes closer to the end of the needle.

I've never read anything about injecting or re-injecting mid cook. That could be an interesting concept if it hasn't been already tested. Trying to think scientifically about it, when you inject you do see a lot of liquid travel back out the hole to the surface of the meat. It could be the constriction of the tissues as it's cooked pushing it back out and if you re-injected more might stay? Sounds like a big experiment.