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... blood will not clot ...

I've wondered about this and can't explain the mechanism. I don't recall it coming up in school. I imagine that there's either increased local** activity of something like antithrombin (to prevent fibrin clotting) or of tissue plasminogen activator (to readily dissolve fibrin clots as formed). But there's surprisingly little I could find on the topic after a quick search.

** (I doubt the acitivity of these enzymes would be increased systemically or else this would be too clinically significant to overlook, for example, in terms of dosing premenopausal women in need of anticoagulants)

Seems like as good as place as any to bring this up

I can't argue with this, but...........

Menstrual fluid is thrombin free.

Reverse Marinade: The Grilling Trick You Never Knew About

A little bit of science goes a long way when it comes to grilling delicious meat.


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reverse-marinade-grilling_l_5d2dd894e4b085eda5a21c60

I saw that. Reminds me why I don't get my grilling advice from HuffPo. 

FYI my post last night about the HuffPo article was mostly short to remind me to give a more complete response.

It's not that the HuffPo article is wrong. It's that it's overly simplified and written in such a way that people who don't know any better are going to start talking about how "reverse marinade" is the big new way to cook without a more significant understanding of why. It's dumbing things down.

A few points:

• The first annoyance was the phrase "when the brisket hits the flame". You don't grill brisket. It was a novice writer's attempt to use "brisket" which is in vogue due to BBQ without the understanding that grilling brisket over direct heat won't exactly give you an edible piece of meat.
• The second was the idea that what they're proposing is anything novel. They're proposing that you sauce meat. Saucing meat has been around forever. 
• Then they say that pre-grilling marinades are pointless because they either won't penetrate the meat more than a minimal amount (and thus won't add flavor). However, if that's the case, then we shouldn't sear meat either. Because it's purely on the surface and clearly can't add much flavor, right? Of course that's not right. Marinade doesn't have to penetrate to the center of meat to add to flavor. 
• The most novel idea they have is that you dunk the cooked meat in the sauce for 30-60 minutes, then reheat the meat on the grill. This is the only difference of a "post-marinade" vs a sauce. However, if marinade won't penetrate the meat, why would a post-marinade do any better? 
• Then they claim that a sweet marinade is a bad idea because cooking it over high direct heat will burn rather than caramelize the sugars. But their recipe at the bottom calls for taking the post-marinade chicken which has been sitting in a marinade incorporating maple syrup, and putting it over high heat to sear. Won't that burn the sugar in the syrup? 

Beyond those disagreements, the idea itself has merit. It is true (and mentioned in the article) that if you marinate meat, a lot of the flavor of the marinade is lost during the grilling process. And that there are some marinades containing sweet ingredients that can improve the flavor of the meat with caramelization, and for those you want to add them after searing the surface--but you then want to cook them indirect or over lower heat so they caramelize rather than burn. Such as what people do when they sauce ribs on the smoker--cook them indirect or over low-medium heat to caramelize the bbq sauce. If you throw them over high heat you'll burn it. 

But the article reminded me of this article in Thrillist. It purports to teach you something, but it doesn't really give you enough information to understand how and why you're truly doing what you're doing, but gives you a fancy name like "reverse marinade" to make you sound savvy.

When I make things like sauerbraten, I always sear the meat before it goes into the marinade. Alton Brown once said that marinade penetrates seared meat better than it does raw meat. I don't know (or care) how this works, but I found it interesting.

When I make things like sauerbraten, I always sear the meat before it goes into the marinade. Alton Brown once said that marinade penetrates seared meat better than it does raw meat. I don't know (or care) how this works, but I found it interesting.

I suspect it's that the marinade with either impede searing or will burn when you try to sear it. And yet you want both the flavor contribution of searing as well as the flavor contribution of the marinade. 

So you sear first and then marinade, and you get both.