Has Anyone Brined Alligator Meat

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Can someone tell me what brining does other than making the meat salty as hell?

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Brining in a salt solution allows the salt to denature some of the proteins in the meat. This effectively untangles the protein's structure. When the proteins are untangled, they don't hold onto each other as well and gaps are created in between them. These gaps allow water to move in, resulting in more moisture in the meat. For lean meats like pork, chicken, and fish, which don't have the benefit of a lot of intramuscular fat to lubricate them during and after cooking, this results in a moister final product and a better texture and mouth feel.

In addition, there are those that say that the meat is higher in total solutes than the brine, so that in addition to the protein denaturing that goes on, osmosis happens to further increase the amount of water that moves into the meat. This is debated, though pretty much all food scientists agree that at least one of these two phenomena is responsible for what brining does.

Ultimately, all cooking is going to cause proteins in meats to contract and that contraction is going to squeeze out the meat's moisture. So, the idea is to use brining to introduce more water in between the proteins before cooking so that after cooking, you have more left and a much juicer and tastier final result.

Brining should NOT make the meat too salty, though it will introduce salt into the meat and can replace all of the seasoning you otherwise would do to properly salt the meat. If it's too salty, the brine had too much salt for the amount of time you left the meat in the brine. In general, for a given brine time, the more salt that is concentrated in the brine, the saltier the meat. Also, in general, for a given concentration of salt in the brine, the longer you leave the meat in, the saltier it will be. So, by changing either the concentration of salt, the brine time, or both, you can fine tune the final seasoning to the meat you're brining while making sure the meat's in the brine long enough to take on the water, which is really what you're brining to accomplish.

Don't give up on it. Proper brining makes poultry so much better.

If you're really interested in the whys and hows of cooking from a "what's REALLY happening here" standpoint, I highly recommend "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee. If you've ever seen "Good Eats", you've seen the type of material in the book. Alton Brown used it as a primary source, so when Alton's giving you the science rundown of whatever it is he's talking about on that episode, the scientific explanation (and sometimes the exact metaphor Alton uses) almost certainly came from that book.

Also, to the OP, I've never brined alligator, but it seems to me that it's the type of meat that would lend itself well to brining.

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Also, to the OP, I've never brined alligator, but it seems to me that it's the type of meat that would lend itself well to brining.

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That's what I'm thinking. I have 12 lbs of alligator jowl meat. I was going to try it out on a pound or 2 and see if it makes the meat more tender.