Got my smoker done and decided to try my first load of jerky.
Purchased 6lbs of "espaldilla" from a local mexican market that was sliced to about 1/8". I believe espaldilla is from the shoulder. It ran me $2.99/lb.
I trimmed right under a lb of fat from my original 6lbs.
I used a recipe that Nepas had posted in an earlier thread with a few tweeks (my tweeks are in red):
3 TBS non-iodized salt
1 TSP cure #1
1 TBS garlic granules
1 TBS ginger powder
1 TBS ground mustard seed
1 TBS black pepper (I used 1/2 TBS fresh ground black pepper and 1/2 TBS white pepper)
1 TBS onion powder ( I added this based on past jerky experiments)
1/2 cup red wine (I subbed 1/2 cup Kikoman Teriyaki Sauce as I didn't have any red wine)
1 cup soy sauce
2 cups clear corn syrup (I subbed 2 cups Yoshida's sauce since I didn't have corn syrup)
1 1/2 cups water
Mixed dry ingredients well and then added wet in a large ceramic bowl.
Added trimmed meat, mixed well and into the fridge covered with plastic wrap. Mixed a few times and let it soak overnight.
In the am I dumped the meat into a strainer and let it drain while I readied my racks and preheated the smoker.
I loaded the racks. With this marinade I feel like patting the meat dry before placing it on the racks was not necessary. I tried blotting on rack load with paper towels prior to putting it in the smoker and I could not tell any difference between the blotted/non-blotted.
Now time for the experiments! I had several different grinds of peppers from my garden: Smoked then dehydrated jalapeno, plain dehydrated jalapeno, and dehydrated habanero. I left 2 racks plain and sprinkled some of the peppers on the other pieces.
I loaded the smoker with the racks and had my PID set to 115 for 1 hour.
After 1hr at 115 I stuck my AMNPS in with one row loaded with a mix of Hickory and Apple pellets and my PID bumped the temp up to 135 for 2 hours.
After 2hrs of smoke I pulled out the AMNPS and the PID bumped the temp to 160 to finish.
I then mixed 1/2cup Yoshida with 1/2cup brown sugar, heated in the microwave, and brushed this on one rack to glaze it.
I pulled 2 racks at 5hrs and the other 2 at 7hrs (after the bend test). Looks like I'll have to try running multiple temp probes and see what my temp differences are from top to bottom.
Finished product:
Glazed with Yoshida
Unglazed
After smoking, the meat weighed in at 2.8lbs. So l lost about 44% moisture.
I was pretty darn happy with the outcome! I can't say that one was better than the other. The glazed was a little sweeter and the different peppers all had their own heat/taste. I won't change much about my process in the future.
I did have one concern that hopefully someone can chime in on- I had a lot of condensation dripping from the elbow in my stack. Not sure if I should be concerned or not? I feel like my airflow was good as the few times I opened the door while the AMNPS was running I wasn't choked by smoke and the stack seemed to be exhausting TBS, not white billowing clouds. Here's a couple pictures of my stack set-up for reference:
It exits in the center of the rear at the top.
Thanks to all that have given jerky advice on here. I gleaned a little from each of the hundreds of posts I read prior to this attempt. Special thanks to Nepas for the teriyaki recipe!
Purchased 6lbs of "espaldilla" from a local mexican market that was sliced to about 1/8". I believe espaldilla is from the shoulder. It ran me $2.99/lb.
I trimmed right under a lb of fat from my original 6lbs.
I used a recipe that Nepas had posted in an earlier thread with a few tweeks (my tweeks are in red):
3 TBS non-iodized salt
1 TSP cure #1
1 TBS garlic granules
1 TBS ginger powder
1 TBS ground mustard seed
1 TBS black pepper (I used 1/2 TBS fresh ground black pepper and 1/2 TBS white pepper)
1 TBS onion powder ( I added this based on past jerky experiments)
1/2 cup red wine (I subbed 1/2 cup Kikoman Teriyaki Sauce as I didn't have any red wine)
1 cup soy sauce
2 cups clear corn syrup (I subbed 2 cups Yoshida's sauce since I didn't have corn syrup)
1 1/2 cups water
Mixed dry ingredients well and then added wet in a large ceramic bowl.
Added trimmed meat, mixed well and into the fridge covered with plastic wrap. Mixed a few times and let it soak overnight.
In the am I dumped the meat into a strainer and let it drain while I readied my racks and preheated the smoker.
I loaded the racks. With this marinade I feel like patting the meat dry before placing it on the racks was not necessary. I tried blotting on rack load with paper towels prior to putting it in the smoker and I could not tell any difference between the blotted/non-blotted.
Now time for the experiments! I had several different grinds of peppers from my garden: Smoked then dehydrated jalapeno, plain dehydrated jalapeno, and dehydrated habanero. I left 2 racks plain and sprinkled some of the peppers on the other pieces.
I loaded the smoker with the racks and had my PID set to 115 for 1 hour.
After 1hr at 115 I stuck my AMNPS in with one row loaded with a mix of Hickory and Apple pellets and my PID bumped the temp up to 135 for 2 hours.
After 2hrs of smoke I pulled out the AMNPS and the PID bumped the temp to 160 to finish.
I then mixed 1/2cup Yoshida with 1/2cup brown sugar, heated in the microwave, and brushed this on one rack to glaze it.
I pulled 2 racks at 5hrs and the other 2 at 7hrs (after the bend test). Looks like I'll have to try running multiple temp probes and see what my temp differences are from top to bottom.
Finished product:
Glazed with Yoshida
Unglazed
After smoking, the meat weighed in at 2.8lbs. So l lost about 44% moisture.
I was pretty darn happy with the outcome! I can't say that one was better than the other. The glazed was a little sweeter and the different peppers all had their own heat/taste. I won't change much about my process in the future.
I did have one concern that hopefully someone can chime in on- I had a lot of condensation dripping from the elbow in my stack. Not sure if I should be concerned or not? I feel like my airflow was good as the few times I opened the door while the AMNPS was running I wasn't choked by smoke and the stack seemed to be exhausting TBS, not white billowing clouds. Here's a couple pictures of my stack set-up for reference:
It exits in the center of the rear at the top.
Thanks to all that have given jerky advice on here. I gleaned a little from each of the hundreds of posts I read prior to this attempt. Special thanks to Nepas for the teriyaki recipe!
