Hello from upstate NY

[debbie1105]

Hi all.  I'm a newbie to this whole world of smoking and am hoping all you experts can help steer me in the right direction.  I bought a MES 30 analog and have done a little experimenting with it.  Nothing too courageous but enough to get my feet wet.  I also recently bought a meat grinding and sausage stuffing attachment for my KA mixer and so I've been doing a little sausage making as well.  

This weekend in upstate NY is rainy and chilly so I thought I'd spend it making some sausage and jerky.  Hoping to get some good advice on the jerky making since I've read enough of the posts in these forums to be completely confused :-)

Thanks for having me.

 

[alblancher]

Welcome to the forum Debbie1105.  Yea you picked a difficult one to get started with didn't you.   Ask away, we'll help any way we can.

 

[debbie1105]

Actually, I originally thought I picked an easy one...I think I'm discovering differently, however.  My biggest challenge seems to be generating enough smoke.  Going to try leaving the chips dry next time.

 

[s2k9k]

Hi Debbie! 

 to SMF!!! Glad to have you here!! Lot's of MES users here that will offer some great advice.

 

[alblancher]

There are a lot of different ways to do jerkey as you have discovered.  Pick your cure and work the recipe around that

 

[scarbelly]

Hello Debbie and 

to SMF - glad to have you here - I deleted the extra posts for you 

 

[LanceR]

Debbie, I'm in Sennett just outside of Auburn.  I'm new here too.  Welcome to the site.

I'm pretty much a purist with jerky.  I want the meat to be the dominant taste so all I use is non-iodized salt, coarse cracked pepper and molases.

Here are the link to the recipe I've used for years.

http://www.bbq-porch.org/recipes/html/r1327.htm

Your Masterbuilt should do just fine.  you might want to go a bit light on the smoke the first time.  You might be surprised how mush flavor will come from a few hours of clean smoke.  Some folks find that intense smike flaovor is objectionable so I would err on the side of caution the first time.  It will still spoil you for store bough jerky.

Good luck

Lance

 

[smokinhusker]

Hello Debbie and welcome to SMF! I have the digital MES 40 and jerky was one of the first things I "perfected to our preference". I use kits and tweak them to what we want and I always use

Cure #1, because I smoke it low and slow for several hours. After getting the jerky where we wanted it, I then started on snack sticks and summer sausage and still use Cure #1 in them as well. 

Go light on your smoke until you decide how strong you want the smoke taste. I cut mesquite and hickory with apple or cherry, because mesquite and hickory are pretty strong on their own. I've also been using the Jack Daniels Oak Barrel Chips and we really like them.

Good luck and you can always do a search of the forum, using the search bar at the top of the page or read through some of the jerky and sausage threads in their respective sub forums.

You may also be interested in TulsaJeff's Free Smoking Basics e-course and you can sign up here: http://www.smoking-meat.com/smoking-basics-ecourse.html