Well here it goes. First jerky smoke.

[Darrin]

Couldn't find any decent London broil so I got some round roasts. Looked like ti would be easy cutting with the grain.



Sliced by hand into 1/4" - 3/8" stips the best I could without a slicer.



Used
4Tbs Tender quick
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 C Soy Sauce
2/3 C Worcestershire sauce
4 TBS Splenda



Put them in a gallon ziploc bag in the fridge all night. Pulled them out this morning.



Spread on the rack ready for the smoker. Have 3 racks full. Will post more pics shortly.

[DDave]

Sliced by hand into 1/4" - 3/8" stips the best I could without a slicer.

Looks like pretty good slicing to me.

Lookin' good. Keep us posted.

Dave

[two-eyes-up]

Can't hardly wait for results

[Slanted88]

Rock On!....Looks good!

[Darrin]

3 hours in. Should I flip them over or just leave them alone?

[curious aardvark]

leave it alone - and I hate to tell you this but you really should have sliced ACROSS the grain.
Well, you slice with the grain to get really chewy jerky and across the grain to get more tender eating jerky.

Reason being the long muscle fibres are tough, cut with them and you retain that toughness in the cooked meat. Cut across the grain and you only have very short segments of muscle tissue - so the final product is much more tender to eat.

Other that that and the unnecessary use of cure, it all looks excellent.

If jerky is being hot smoked the smoke will fully cure it anyway - and I know that because of richtee's sticky in the info thread: laugh, I nearly fell off my chair

[Texas-Hunter]

I agree with CA... no need to flip them

[Darrin]

Well this is the first try so I consider it a learning experience. I do like jerky kinda tough, so I can't eat it as fast.

I guess I should have cut 1 with and 1 against so I could compare. As for the cure. Oh well, better safe than spewing? I know I probably didn't need to, but I put it in there anyway.

[curious aardvark]

Wood contains large amounts of nitrogen (N). During burning the nitrogen in the logs combines with oxygen (O) in the air to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Nitrogen dioxide is highly water-soluble. The pink ring is created when NO2 is absorbed into the moist meat surface and reacts to form nitrous acid. The nitrous acid then diffuses inward creating a pink ring via the classic meat curing reaction of sodium nitrite

Given that the smoke ring on jerky is pretty much all the way through - you don't need to add nitrite to the seasoning 'cos the smoker will effectively do it for you :-)

[Darrin]

I only used 1 small chunk as I did not want to over smoke. A few people said that jerky absorbs a lot of the smoke flavor and I did not want to ruin $20 worth of meat. So I'm not sure if there would have been enough smoke to cure or not.

[DDave]

Wood contains large amounts of nitrogen (N). During burning the nitrogen in the logs combines with oxygen (O) in the air to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Nitrogen dioxide is highly water-soluble. The pink ring is created when NO2 is absorbed into the moist meat surface and reacts to form nitrous acid. The nitrous acid then diffuses inward creating a pink ring via the classic meat curing reaction of sodium nitrite

Given that the smoke ring on jerky is pretty much all the way through - you don't need to add nitrite to the seasoning 'cos the smoker will effectively do it for you :-)

But Rich's post also goes on to say . . .

The end result is a "smoke ring" that has the pink color of cured meat.

Soo . . . is it really cured . . .or does it just look like it is?

Because I also found the quote below from this article.

[What other factors affect the growth of bacteria?]
When meat is smoked, the environment is robbed of most if its oxygen. If this is combined with temperatures in the danger zone, the growth of the bacteria that causes botulism is increased.

Most of the folks here who don't cure their jerky also say that the jerky doesn't stay around long enough to go bad. Have any of you folks that don't cure jerky saved it for a few weeks at room temperature and then eaten it?

Not trying to start an argument, just looking for clarification.

Dave

[curious aardvark]

Soo . . . is it really cured . . .or does it just look like it is?

Yes it really is cured. Same chemical, same process - all that's different is where the chemical comes from.
And - throw in: salt, drying the meat and cooking the meat - and jerky's so safe you could leave it on the floor of your truck for a month and still eat it (maybe dust it off a bit first ;-)

[DDave]

Yes it really is cured. Same chemical, same process - all that's different is where the chemical comes from.
And - throw in: salt, drying the meat and cooking the meat - and jerky's so safe you could leave it on the floor of your truck for a month and still eat it (maybe dust it off a bit first ;-)

But you're not cooking the meat if you're drying it at 140°.

So are you saying you don't need cure if you "cook" it to a safe internal temp while smoking at, say 165° or higher, or are you saying you don't need cure regardless of what temp you use to dry it.

Because the temp you use to prepare it I would think is an important detail.

Dave

On Edit: Sorry to hijack your thread, Darrin.

How's the jerky coming by the way?

[Darrin]

On Edit: Sorry to hijack your thread, Darrin.

How's the jerky coming by the way?

It's not a hijack. I'm just as interested as you.

Jerky is still in the MES. I've got it at 110*. It's still soft, but has dried out quite a bit. I'm not really sure how to tell when it is done. Tastes good though!

About 5 hours into

[daboys]

Looking good Darrin. I have always used a cure with my jerky. You're right, better safe then sorry.