Nice job SQWIB,
TQ or other cures take care of a lot of safety factors.
Those who use it, instead of Mr. Brown's recipes, don't have to get the steer to give it's name, rank, and serial number at time of execution. Nor do we have to know what county of what state he came from, or what cows he hung out with during his grazing days as a calf.
"Curing" is the name of the game, whenever we talk about low heat & long smoking.
We could do low heat & long smoking without cure (especially Jerky, because it's so thin) many times, without getting sick or dying, but one of those times it could come back & bite us in the you know what.
That's why so many of us try to explain "salt is not a cure".
Thanks for showing,
Bear