Overview
Marinating is something that takes a lot of forethought if you want to do it properly. Expert chefs will marinate their meats for hours and hours to get the juices to infuse into the meat itself, providing the best possible flavor throughout.
This is important not only for the taste of the meat, but also for the texture when you eat it. After a few bites, meat can lose its flavor if it just has sauce on the outside. This means you can be chewing and chewing with hardly any flavor left if meat isn’t properly marinated.
The Claim
The Instant Marinator claims that it can marinate your foods in just a few minutes, without the need to let them sit for long periods of time, like overnight. It claims to be able to do this by creating a vacuum environment inside the container, so the marinade has nowhere else to go but into the meat.
The Hype
The hype comes from how quickly it claims to be able to marinate meat. Since they had the boldness to add the word instant to their product name, it immediately creates hype by saying that you can marinate right along the cooking process, and you don’t have to take any special steps or plan hours ahead of time.
The Cost
Instant Marinator costs around $30 and you can currently get it from Amazon and it will ship free with their Super Saver shipping.
The Commitment
You should only get this if you’re committed to using it enough to justify the extra cost. Unless you currently cook a lot of meat and either marinate it the old fashioned way, or wish that you could marinate it but just don’t have the time, you should pass on this item.
It doesn’t make sense to adjust your cooking habits to justify purchasing this gadget. If you don’t eat a lot of meat, or you’ve never considered marinating before, there’s no need to invest in something like this.
Evaluation
Apparently the makers of Instant Marinator think that the vacuum action that their product provides is a way to speed up the marinating process. In fact, all that is instructed to do is place the meat inside the container, and the marinade of your choice, and pump the handle the required amount of times. The theory is by removing the air from the container, it is opening up the meat to allow the sauce to enter.
Good theory, but it doesn’t seem to work in practice. This is one item that doesn’t live up to its claims, and either because it doesn’t create enough of a vacuum seal, or because it doesn’t have any movable parts that do anything to the meat at all, it just falls short.
For the marinade enthusiasts out there, it will be sad news to discover that the Instant Marinator doesn’t seem to do much except sit there and look pretty. When put to the test against ordinary marinating methods, it failed miserably.
If you get it and
do a comparison test you’ll notice that even if you just let you meat soak in a Ziplock bag with the same marinade for just a few minutes it tastes better. Just take a tip from the vacuum concept and be sure to release all the air from the baggie. Removing the air really does work at giving the sauce nowhere else to go but into the meat. It’s just odd that it the machine isn’t able to work as well as doing it yourself.Our Recommendation
Pass on the Instant Marinator and stick to your current marinating methods. This is something that you can perfect on your own without the need for any gadgets. It’s just a matter of trial and error and getting the meat to be the way you want it to.
If you have problems with saving money and keeping track of your spending habits then…
When you are looking for space-saving multi-purpose shelving products, you may want to purchase the…
Today's innovative advanced technologies have created many conveniences. The ability to read on the go…
Experiencing the luxury of owning a wireless speaker is a favorite of many people. The…
Home decor is a very individual and personal choice. A new product like Chasing Paper…
Keeping track of events and goals may be difficult for some people. Purchasing a product…
View Comments
No type of marinating works..prove it yourself..,Marinate one peice of meat and on the other one--just splash marinade on it for 10 seconds----Cook it-You can not tell the difference.
In my opinion, vacuum marination only works on compressible items such as cucumbers. Meat such as beef steak and chicken breast are vitually incompressible and vacuum marination has absolutely no effect and is a complete waste of time. There is an excellent scientific justification for this view here.
https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/pressuremarinade.html
It is also that traditional marinading is a waste of time as even after 18 hours, only the first 2 or 3 mm of meat is affected. See America's Test Kitchen for further details. Brining on the other hand does work because osmosis causes the salt to penetrate much deeper into the meat.
Well,
Most commercial charcuterie/sausage making facilities use professional stainless steel vacuum marinators.
I guess they were all duped by the vacuum marinating myth?
I think that vacuuming the meat would keep some of the bacteria down if you poked holes into the meat it would do as good as with just vacuuming maybe tumbling the meat under vacuum would get better results?
The reason results are poor or non-existent is because these plastic devices and the pitiful pumps supplied are unable to pull down a sufficiently high vacuum and maintain it.
I design and make a lot of machinery for the inkjet refilling industry and this equipment uses vacuum, but of a much higher degree over 780mBar.
I adapted one of my cleaning machines to marinade under high vacuum and it works really well giving great results in a short time frame, it has a 5 litre tank.
Perhaps I should think about making them.
Does this work? For sure it does, but only to an extent. Want to marinade meats and tenderize them quickly and at the same time? Put them in a container with the marinade and stab the heck out of the meat with a fork to help introduce the marinade deep into the tissues. The forking and the marinade will both work together to break down the tissues (if there's any kind of acid- lemon juice, vinegar, etc in the marinade)... Then put the meats and marinade into a ziploc, press the air out and refrigerate. This will work every time. And I cook a LOT of meat...
My experience is that it speeds up the marination process a bit, but "instant" is nonsense. I'd say that two hours in the marinator is equivalent to three hours in a ziplock bag. I use mine once in a while, especially if the meat is of questionable tenderness. Most of the time, though, I'm too lazy to bother with it.
I don't marinate often, but I've always thought it would be a nice way of adding more flavor and interest to a dinner. I've seen on TV that when companies make a lot of marinated meat quickly, they do vacuum seal it, and it makes the process work more quickly. The Instant Marinator should work in theory, but maybe it doesn't vacuum seal enough, or something. But if you have time to let it sit, it might not be instant, but it would probably do just as good of a job as a baggie, but it would probably do it at least a little more quickly. If you do a lot of marinating, it's probably worth giving it a try, since the price isn't terribly high.
The Instant Marinator really does work. We do a lot of grilling in the summer months. This makes marinating the meats so much easier. The vacuum force I believe adds to the tenderness and flavor of the meat. The price is reasonable as we use ours at least two or three times a week. I add all different types of marinades and the meat comes out tasty and tender. I love mine and recommend this for anyone who grills their meats.
I don't eat enough meat to justify purchasing this product. The only times I marinate meat are for cookouts, and for cookouts I'm always preparing a bunch of things the night before anyway, so that's when I start marinating. But the concept does seem intriguing. Too bad it doesn't work, because the idea of using vacuum force to make the marinade infuse into the meat instantly seems like it would work.
I wonder if those vacuum seal containers might work similarly? I think I might try that next time I marinate meat.