Im confused

[daveomak]

You dump the liquid when making jerky so any chemicals in the liquid are thrown out.....
In sausage, the liquid evaporates leaving behind any chemicals in the meat...

 

[pa42phigh]

You dump the liquid when making jerky so any chemicals in the liquid are thrown out.....
In sausage, the liquid evaporates leaving behind any chemicals in the meat...

Makes sense I didn’t think of that thx

 

[SonnyE]

Perfect explanation Dave!
A real Gold Nugget!

 

[OldFartFarmer]

Dave,
you got a great way of lighting up the old lightbulb, when you flip the answer switch,
Thanks
John

 

[Rings Я Us]

Temps 160 degrees for 2 hours then lower it to 120/130 degrees until dried to you liking. The trick to jerky is lots of warm dry air flowing at a high rate over the meats to whisk moisture. If there was a breeze blowing it Death Valley in the dead of summer it'd be the perfect natural environment to make jerky by simply hanging meats outside to dry.

Problem with lots of smokers is to keep the temperatures down you need to choke back the air flow. Now you have a low temp but because of diminished airflow have trouble removing the moisture from the interior of the smoker. To exacerbate the issue one of the byproducts of combustion is water. So when using a heat source with a flame you are adding the very thing you are trying to remove.

With the above said I am not saying you cannot make great jerky on a smoker. It just takes longer (cure is especially important if longer drying time are needed) and texturally it may also be a little different.

I use a Smoker for jerky and go at 160° for only 5-6 hours. I make 5-10 lbs at a time in my smoker. Dehydrator takes longer and most all never reach 160° IT. Dehydrator will cost you big bucks on electric if your running a larger one. 1200-1600 watt.

 

[daveomak]

Perfect explanation Dave!
A real Gold Nugget!

Dave,
you got a great way of lighting up the old lightbulb, when you flip the answer switch,
Thanks
John

Sometimes I know what it takes for me to understand stuff... And I can only hope we are on the same wavelength trying to understand this conundrum called "curing meats".....

 

[Rings Я Us]

So if I have an appliance that uses 1600 watts and runs continuous for 24 hours and I pay 7-1/2 ( I think I pay in the 6 cent range) cents per kilowatt hour in 24 hours I'll use $2.90 in electric. Since jerky takes substantially less and time to dry (about 8 hours) and heating element isn't at full capacity the entire time I'd be surprised if I use $1.00 worth of electricity dehydrating a 5 to 7lb run of jerky.

1600 x 24 = 38,400 kw per day

38,400 / 1000 = 38.4 kilowatt

7-1/2 cents per kilowatt hour x 38.4 kilowatt hours = $2.88

No. Your bill goes up $20 or more if you run the dehydrator 2-3 times a week. Just the same as me using my smoker 1650 watt twice a week. The monthly bill goes up $40.00. Here. I know.. I pay the bill and it increased a bunch when using the smoker for jerky. It's not $1.99 or $2.99 per use.

 

[Bearcarver]

The average kilowatt per hour in the USA is $0.12

1600watt x 24 hours = 38,400 watts or 38.4 kilowatt.

38.4 kilowatt per day x $0.12 = $4.60

Jerky takes about 8 hours to dry so 1/3 of 24 hours. $4.60 / 3 = $1.53.

During the 8 hours my dehydrator is running to make jerky it isn't running continually at capacity/1600 watts so electrical use is further reduces. So even at $0.12 per kw/hr my dehydrator would use about $1.00 worth of electricity per 8 hours.

I agree if you used the dehydrator 2 or 3 time per week your bill would go up around $15 per month.

That's more like it.
And an MES 40 is only 1200 Watts, and cycles on & off a lot.
Only time it runs full blast for any amount of time is the 20 minutes or so it takes to get to set Temp.

Bear