Most all of us had something we made that turned out terrible when we first started in this hobby. I tell people all the time that things like that happen, just try and learn from the mistake and move on.
Well, I've made a HUGE mistake on my last batch of pork jerky, and instead of tossing it and keeping quiet, I figured I'd share my fail, and the lessons I learned from it.
So, what were my mistakes?
1 - I didn't practice what I preach. I used tsp and Tbs measurements instead of weights
2 - I didn't pay attention to what I was doing since I was multi-tasking and rushing
3 - I didn't sample my marinade prior to use
What happened was this, in my rush to get the sliced pork out of my way, so I could start brining some chickens, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and added 2.5 TABLESPOONS of kosher salt instead of 2.5 TEASPOONS!
Had I used weights (grams), the chances of this happening are extremely slim. Grams are grams when you look at a recipe, but a tsp looks like a tbs when you're not paying attention or are in a hurry.
Now, this was just a screw up on my salt measurement, what would have happened if I had used almost 4x the cure #1? I could have made someone sick!!! For the record, I did weigh out my cure since I wasn't at an even 5# of meat.
So, I now have just over 3 pounds of what is basically dehydrated salt pork....
Again, I wrote this up to show that even after 30 years of this madness we call a hobby, mistakes can still happen if you don't pay attention to what's going on. Mistakes can happen when you get over confident in your abilities.
Well, I've made a HUGE mistake on my last batch of pork jerky, and instead of tossing it and keeping quiet, I figured I'd share my fail, and the lessons I learned from it.
So, what were my mistakes?
1 - I didn't practice what I preach. I used tsp and Tbs measurements instead of weights
2 - I didn't pay attention to what I was doing since I was multi-tasking and rushing
3 - I didn't sample my marinade prior to use
What happened was this, in my rush to get the sliced pork out of my way, so I could start brining some chickens, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and added 2.5 TABLESPOONS of kosher salt instead of 2.5 TEASPOONS!
Had I used weights (grams), the chances of this happening are extremely slim. Grams are grams when you look at a recipe, but a tsp looks like a tbs when you're not paying attention or are in a hurry.
Now, this was just a screw up on my salt measurement, what would have happened if I had used almost 4x the cure #1? I could have made someone sick!!! For the record, I did weigh out my cure since I wasn't at an even 5# of meat.
So, I now have just over 3 pounds of what is basically dehydrated salt pork....
Again, I wrote this up to show that even after 30 years of this madness we call a hobby, mistakes can still happen if you don't pay attention to what's going on. Mistakes can happen when you get over confident in your abilities.
