Good lesson for all new folks. Pork. Jerky. FAIL!

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crankybuzzard

Smoking Guru
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Jan 4, 2014
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Montague County, TX
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.
 
Thanks for posting CrankyBuzzard.  We've all experienced projects that did not end up as hoped. As far as I am concerned, the failed attempts are as important as the successes, so points for that.

As to the dehydrated salt pork, I'm sure that you have many recipes that would benefit from that ingredient!
 
Good thread CB, I know I've sure been guilty of these kind of things.... Doesn't matter if you've been smoking 3 months or 30 years things do happen... We all need a reminder from time to time for sure, thanks for sharing ! IMHO, the smokes that don't turn out as planned are just as much a learning experience as the successful ones ! Hope ya can salvage the pork in a recipe or somethin !

Points for sharing !
 
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Great post CB. God knows we've all had an oops now and then. I did it when I decided to smoke a whole whack (yes that really IS a measurement) of nuts one day. I used about 4 times the proper amount of salt in the brine. I ended up washing the smoked nuts to try to reduce the REALLY salty flavour. It worked, but "barely edible" was the nicest thing I could say about the finished product.

Gary
 
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