Actually I just read a usda article yesterday about shelf stable meat and found this on jerky and they recommend to cook meat to 160 and 165 for poultry then dehydrate.. I would add cure as you did if your not pre cooking to 165.....
Illnesses due to
Salmonella and
E. coli O157:H7 from homemade jerky raise questions about the safety of traditional drying methods for making beef and venison jerky. The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline's current recommendation for making jerky safely is to heat meat to 160 °F and poultry to 165 °F before the dehydrating process. This step assures that any bacteria present will be destroyed by wet heat. But most
dehydrator instructions do not include this step, and a
dehydrator may not reach temperatures high enough to heat meat to 160 °F or 165 °F.
After heating to 160 °F or 165 °F, maintaining a constant
dehydrator temperature of 130 to 140 °F during the drying process is important because:
- the process must be fast enough to dry food before it spoils; and
- it must remove enough water that microorganisms are unable to grow.
Why is it a food safety concern to dry meat without first heating it to 160 °F?
The danger in dehydrating meat and poultry without cooking it to a safe temperature first is that the appliance will not heat the meat to 160 °F and poultry to 165 °F — temperatures at which bacteria are destroyed — before the dehydrating process. After drying, bacteria become much more heat resistant.
Within a
dehydrator or low-temperature oven, evaporating moisture absorbs most of the heat. Thus, the meat itself does not begin to rise in temperature until most of the moisture has evaporated. Therefore, when the dried meat temperature finally begins to rise, the bacteria have become more heat resistant and are more likely to survive. If these surviving bacteria are pathogenic, they can cause foodborne illness to those consuming the jerky.
Here's the full article
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal...at-preparation/jerky-and-food-safety/ct_index