I've had some pork jerky made by others in the past and liked it, but I've never made any myself. So, Sunday night I started a batch.
I wanted to do a couple of things different this time, I wanted to dry cure prior to smoking and drying, and I wanted to slice the meat thicker than usual.
I had an 8 pound pork loin in the frig and began slicing pieces 1/4-3/8" thick until I had just a tad over 5 pounds of sliced pork.
I mixed up the following dry cure and applied to the meat.
1 tsp cure #1
5 Tbs Brown Sugar
2.5 Tbs Smoked kosher salt
5 tsp Garlic Powder
5 tsp Onion Powder
5 tsp course ground Black pepper
5 tsp. Worcestershire powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less if desired)
I put the mixed ingredients into a shaker bottle and covered one side of the meat. I allowed the meat to sit for a minute or so before flipping.
After coating both sides of all of the meat, I put all of the meat into a 1-gallon ziplock and put it in the frig for 72 hours. This afternoon, I came home, pulled the meat out of the bag, placed the meat on my "fancy" hangers, and stuck them into the smoker at 120 to dry a bit.
Hickory smoke will begin soon in the Amazen tray, and the temp will bump to 130. I'll bump the temp up 10 degrees each hour until I hit 150, then it'll dry at that temp until I get back home later. Smoke stops after 3 hours or so.
Heading back to work after I set the temp at 150 and will be back home around 11:00 PM central to check on it. If it isn't ready by then, I'll drop the temp to 120 and let it go until 6:00 AM tomorrow.
Anyone see any holes in my plan?
I wanted to do a couple of things different this time, I wanted to dry cure prior to smoking and drying, and I wanted to slice the meat thicker than usual.
I had an 8 pound pork loin in the frig and began slicing pieces 1/4-3/8" thick until I had just a tad over 5 pounds of sliced pork.
I mixed up the following dry cure and applied to the meat.
1 tsp cure #1
5 Tbs Brown Sugar
2.5 Tbs Smoked kosher salt
5 tsp Garlic Powder
5 tsp Onion Powder
5 tsp course ground Black pepper
5 tsp. Worcestershire powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less if desired)
I put the mixed ingredients into a shaker bottle and covered one side of the meat. I allowed the meat to sit for a minute or so before flipping.
After coating both sides of all of the meat, I put all of the meat into a 1-gallon ziplock and put it in the frig for 72 hours. This afternoon, I came home, pulled the meat out of the bag, placed the meat on my "fancy" hangers, and stuck them into the smoker at 120 to dry a bit.
Hickory smoke will begin soon in the Amazen tray, and the temp will bump to 130. I'll bump the temp up 10 degrees each hour until I hit 150, then it'll dry at that temp until I get back home later. Smoke stops after 3 hours or so.
Heading back to work after I set the temp at 150 and will be back home around 11:00 PM central to check on it. If it isn't ready by then, I'll drop the temp to 120 and let it go until 6:00 AM tomorrow.
Anyone see any holes in my plan?