Jerky process and colour

[rob g]

I got 17lb of meat into the marinade yesterday so I could dehydrate today. I split it into 3 flavor batches. My process was as follows:
- trim inside round of visible fat
- partial freeze and then thru the meat slicer for 1/4" slices (with and across grain depending on piece of meat)
- mix the marinade to suit the bag size (1× 5lb, 2× 3lb, 2× 3lb) including cure#1
- dip each individual piece of meat into the marinade before dropping into bag
- dump remainder of marinade into the ziplock bag and seal after removing all possible air
- bags went into garage fridge to sit 18-24 hours with a squeeze and a flip after 9 hours
- this morning I brought 11lb out and drained off the marinade
- placed each piece on to a paper towel and squeezed the layer with top paper towel to remove excess moisture before placing on to the dehydrator trays
- in to the dehydrator at 160F until done, likely about 4-5 hours

Question:
- Some of the slices of meat coming out of the marinade have a lot more red than other areas of the slice. Is this normal? Should I have done something differently?

 

[mike243]

Yes it happens,what kind of cure did you use?

 

[rob g]

Yes it happens,what kind of cure did you use?

It was cure #1 from the sausage maker at 1.1g/lb.

 

[dward51]

Also what sort of scale did you use to measure? Some are more accurate than others. I highly recommend a gram scale that has 0.01 (1/100th) of a gram resolution. There are several on Amazon for $20-25 range.

Other scales can be off by 2 or 3 grams and that can make a huge difference. I know you said you did 17 pounds, but if you measured the cure for the smaller bagged amounts and the scale as a +/- of a couple of grams, that matters.

Case in point is my bulk meat scale. It will do grams. but the accuracy range on grams is 0.1 ounce in the 0 to 2 pound range. 0.1 ounce is 2.83 grams. So trying to measure 3.3 grams (for a 3 pound batch of meat) on a scale with a +/- range of 2.83 grams is dang near impossible. That is why I have a 1/100th of a gram scale for measuring cure and spices (along with a calibration weight to verify accuracy).

 

[rob g]

Also what sort of scale did you use to measure? Some are more accurate than others. I highly recommend a gram scale that has 0.01 (1/100th) of a gram resolution. There are several on Amazon for $20-25 range.

Other scales can be off by 2 or 3 grams and that can make a huge difference.

I bought a Triton scale when I started getting into making bacon for measuring the cure #1. I'd rather be safe than sorry.