Beer Marinade Reduces BBQ Cancer Chemical

That does it for me. From now on it's Guinness and brats.

And, when the wife does a pork roast, look out.

I'll second that. Two of my favorite foods.

I suspect the reduction in carcinogens is mostly due to the max temperature the marinated pork reaches being lower and/or for a shorter period than the unmarinated pork. Beer is fairly low in salts, especially compared to most meat, so osmosis should lead to significant uptake of water in the pork over the four hour period. With more water in the pork, the temperature will be suppressed for longer, suggesting that the marinated meat won't reach temperatures as high or high temperatures for as long as the unmarinated meat.

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Drink the Guinness. Drown the brats in something less palatable.

I didn't get that from the article at all. The article stated stout and porter do the best job while lighter beers have less effect. I got from that the 'good stuff' is most concentrated in very dark beer. Your explaination of how this works missed that.

Yeah, I understand the point of view of the article is antiradicals in beer (especially dark beer) scavenging and inhibiting formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). I'm just skeptical that the results support that idea.

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I haven't been able to get much on the actual paper beyond the abstract. The abstract merely states a non-alcoholic pilsner, a pilsner, and a 'black beer' were used as marinades and these were compared to unmarinated samples for PAH. The 'black beer' faired best followed by the nonalcoholic pilsner than the then the pilsner, each marinade showing a significant reduction in PAH levels.

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Chemistry of beer can differ importantly in aspects likely to have meaningful effects on rates of fluid uptake in meat (osmosis). For example, salt content and pH can vary significantly between different types of beers.

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The chart below is not copying well, but it is a good example of the differences in TDS among a variety of common brews. The paper is here. Note, not only the variability in dissolved solids, but also that bicarbonates (chart says carbonate, but HCO₃^- is bicarbonate. Carbonate is CO₃^2- ) which acts as a pH buffer.

.-----------------------+--------+------------+--------+--------------------Calcium (Ca++) | 7 | 119 | 75 | 200 | 270|Magnesium (Mg++) | 2 | 4 | 18 | 60 | 60|Sodium (Na+) | 2 | 12 | 2 | 8 | 30|Carbonate (HCO3--) | 15 | 319 | 150 | 125 | 200|Sulfate (SO4-) | 5 | 53 | 10 | 120 | 640|Cloride (Cl-) | 5 | 19 | 2 | 12 | 40|-----------------------+--------+------------+--------+--------------------Total Dissolved Solids | 35 | 179 | 275 | 850 | 1200|-----------------------+--------+------------+--------+--------|-----------

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The point being, it seems like there are more simple known effects than should be considered before making a leap to possible free radical scavenging. Lower peak temperature has long been correlated with lower PAH formation.

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The variation in chemistry off different beer certainly can have a pronounced effect on water and alcohol uptake into the skin and meat. That could reasonably lead to meaningful variations in the peak temperature and time above certain temperatures experienced.

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It doesn't seem reasonable from the three beers plus control test to conclude that, "... the 'good stuff' concentrated in very dark beer..." is really the agent of change. I realize that is what the article strongly suggests. I'm just not in the habit of accepting what other people say a study means, or even necessarily what the researchers conclude from very limited data. They don't seem to have even tested a porter.

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I'd really like to be able to review the whole study.

OK...

This explanation conforms the article.

I appreciate the in-depth response. The 'good stuff' might very well be as you suggest a mix of chemicals and not a single 'silver bullet'. I do not know enough about the chemistry of beer to even speculate as to what is happening other than something in beer can disrupt PAH production. Probably binding something critical in PAH production during a marinating process. You are probably correct that pH and pH buffering may play a role. I do remember that the water supply was important for good beer in the old days. Now I am sure we have a good idea what good beer water looks like and it is probably hard since spring water was best.

Carcinogens is a pretty stable as I understand it......

I understand the article and believe that the chemicals in the Beer Marinade is that it masks it, and passes it through......

Masks it and passes it through? I didn't get that at all from the article or what is available on the paper. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you are saying though....

Doesn't get digested inhibits the absorption in your body.

Similar to Olestra. There is something that happen in the 70's that comes to mind..... Until then, I'll see if I can come up a link.

I have to get on a computer, an iPad is not the best for researching.

Doesn't seem like the research covered any other marinates or rubs? What the heck? Seems pretty limited.

Author has brewed beer mead and wine.

But there are a whole host of marinates that the Spanish and Portuguese chemist could have also checkout and compared along with beer. That's not even looking at rubs either. Beside what do they know about BBQ anyway. I've done many different meats with beer but it would have been interesting to broaden the experiment.

Granted.

But, I'm a beer drinker.

Yeah that's a given. I still prefer my brown sugar chili rub on baby back rubs over a slow BBQ with mesquite smoke With an ice cold Samuel Adams lager on the side instead of on it. Kind of a waste the other way.

I always use Mesquite wood. I have a ready supply of it and it's free. All I have to do is cut it.

Hickory was the wood of choice when I lived in Arkansas.

We used a lot of apple sometimes hickory back in PA but here I just bring home a couple piece at a time from a job site of Mesquite.

I wonder why this kind of pseudoscience doesn't get attacked like other kinds.

Because they are not attacking our wallets when they do it, so most people just shrug and say "Who cares? If BBQ'ing doesn't get me, the texting driver will."

I'm trying.

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But you do have to admit, there is something about this type of pseudoscience that makes it more palatable.

....according to a new study...

How many studies had they done before a half-baked Phd and published report? I'm researching the effects of bathing in beer and wrinkled skin. Anyone wishing to supply materials is welcome to contact me.

'Beer-bathed pork' - sheesh, you couldn't make this stuff up. Even if you did, the topic would ghet 'archived' .

It's the only way to get truly pickled...

Studies start out as a thought that gets funded by the government and is never positively confirmed. If I were to count the number of times I quit something based on a "study", only to take back based on a counter study, well I lost count a long time ago. That goes for medicines, food, alcohol and smoking. I remember the time when wearing polyester suits were blamed for cancer. They dressed lab rats in tiny polyester suits and they didn't develop cancer. (This was on a J. Carson show I think, or was it S. Allen). The point is always take studies with a grain of salt. There may be a hidden agenda behind every study.

You restarted smoking (assuming you are referring to tobacco cigarettes) base on a counter study?

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Mind if I inquire which counter study led you to believe smoking cigarettes did not present an unacceptable heath risk?

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Just for the record, I fully support your assertion that studies should not be accepted as face value, and really shouldn't be relied upon without having some understanding the study itself. Taking the study with a grain of salt seems like good advice, but neither one needs to be thoughtlessly swallowed whole (might aggravate hypertension).

Yes the study that said everyone who smoked was mentally ill and that studies had concluded that smoking was good for the nerves(to keep the crazies calm), and quitting smoking would lead to weight gain in many, and this then leading to health risks from an overweight condition....

'Cigarette smoke and insufficient apoptosis metastasizes Jack to deadly boils.'

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Hmmmm. Seems like there is something better, close to that, but for now it escaped me.

It's my opinion that I don't think you really quit, but instead taken a sabbatical from smoking.

A lot like, its easy to quit, I've done it hundreds of times.

On an earlier post I'm working on a response, I thought this post is a good time to add this.

A little background here, The company where I work, our main ingredient is liquid smoke.

There is a lot of chemistry and process reacting going on. And separating out the carcinogens in liquid smoke, Such as benzene makes this blog rather interesting to me.

As an engineer, To really understand the dangers, one really should understand the process. or to start with, with the fundamentals of food science on what is going on.

And to start with and is a rather interesting person (at least to me it is) is the what some people refer as father of food science…. French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard. He was the first to really address food preparation with cooking as a science. One process of what he is known for is the Maillard reaction.

Hopefully, I can get my other response I'm working on to a post here taken care that would go into more detail.