First jerky smoke

[ReliableRick]

Getting everything ready for my first Jerky smoke. I will be using Brian's instructions:

I would save the EQ calculations for Charcuterie Projects. Jerky is pretty simple, make it taste good and add some Cure#1.

Jerky Brine:
Step 1. Dump  all things you think are tasty into a bowl. Stick finger in the mix and taste it. If it is overly salty to taste, add some beer, honey or other flavorful ingredient to temper the salt content.

Step 2. Weigh meat strips, add 1 Teaspoon of Cure #1 for every 5lbs of meat to the brine and mix.

Step 3. Add meat strips to brine and let sit overnight. Mix it around a few times to insure all meat gets equal coverage.

Step. 4. Shake off excess brine and lay meat on racks to smoke at a low temp with the jerky fan. 100F makes great jerky but I imagine the Bella and the Fan would make outstanding Jerky.

I am currently at step 2 and preparing for step 3. For step two I found some cans of Coors Light that someone left at the house. As it is currently a crime in Canada to throw out beer (even Coors Light!) I tossed it in the brine and it passed the finger test. Just waiting for the venison to thaw.

The brine is soy sauce, worcestershire, ancho paste, garlic, onion, cayenne, tsp #1 cure. Bambi will bathe in this overnight and go into the smoker tomorrow.

 

[ReliableRick]

So... first jerky smoke.

Started with 5 lbs of venison hip roast from last fall. Trimmed down to 4lbs with all fat, sinew and silverskin removed. The pieces were cut on a meat slicer (with the grain) so they were all slightly less than 1/4" thick.

Meat was put in the marinade at 2 pm on saturday. Came out of the marinade at 8:30 on sunday and in the smoker by 9am.

For smoking temp I went with 125 throughout out the smoke. I set it at 250 with the door open and 1.5 ounces of apple. Once it started smoking I dropped the temp to 125, inserted the trays and closed the doors.

I started checking doneness after 4 hours. Things were progressing nicely so I mixed a cocktail and set alarm to check back in 3 hours.

Starting to look drier on the ends but significant moisture on all pieces. set the alarm for 3 hours and made another cocktail/snoozed on the back patio.

10 hours in and half are ready to take out and the other half are back in. Conscious of the hour and the fact that it is a work day tomorrow, I raised the temp to 135 for the remaining pieces.

2 hours later and the rest of the pieces are done. Bang on 10 hours.

We did a taste test and found the chew to be good but nothing that would set your fitbit to tracking the activity. They definitely weren't salty enough so next time they will stay in the marinade longer. Using an internet tip we bagged all pieces in a ziplock and put in the fridge overnight as this is supposed to equalize the moisture content. Before doing that I laid all the pieces out and sprinkled a little old bay seasoning on both sides.

Monday evening after work we pull out the bag and sure enough each piece has a uniform moisture feel to it. As well, the old bay seasoning has given it some needed flavour flavor.  ;D

Notes for next time. Definitely should have left in the marinade for at least 48 hours. Will likely try a dry cure.

FYI. The jerky fan is a dryer vent cover (home depot $11), a computer fan (free from old computer), and a 9 volt wall wart (left over from some piece of technology that died) and it performed flawlessly.

 

[colecp]

Nice sounding! I too made a similar jerky fan. Works great. What soy sauce did you use? If you ever see it, Healthy Boy Mushroom soy is %$#@ phenomenal. A life changer!

 

[ReliableRick]

Thanks for the tip Cole. I will see if I can find it on Amazon

 

[barelfly]

Thanks for sharing! This looks great - something that I have not tried with the smoker yet. I’ll have to change that soon.

I like the dryer vent fan! Haha!

 

[Pork Belly]

Definitely should have left in the marinade for at least 48 hours.

I forgot to mention, eat a piece raw to check your flavor before you start the drying process. That way you double check the flavor and see if the marinade or dry cure has gone fully through the meat.

Overall looks good. I suspect the marinade was thinned out by too much beer. I dont see much of a residue of it on the strips you have on the racks.

 

[ReliableRick]

Thanks Brian. Next time I'll make it on a Wednesday and smoke on Saturday. I really want to try the dry cure as well.