- Jun 28, 2015
- 483
- 296
I original posted this as a reply to Tx Smokers thread, but he suggested I do it as a separate post, so folk might see in and perhaps benefit from my experience with the Jerky Cannon etc.
Tx Smoker (Robert), was generous enough to not only share his recipe, but also send a few of us samples of the American Harvest seasonings his is using. Can't say enough about how great the folks on this forum are!!
Below is my report from my results, for the original recipe etc. be sure to check out the thread I linked to above.
==
I don't have a grinder, so used 94/6 ground beef and ground pork.
I did 1 1/2 tsp of Chipotle Chile in place of both the Cayenne and Robert's pepper mix. Followed the rest of the recipe exactly. Hoping it won't be to spicy for the Mrs. I made the mix and let it sit in fridge overnight (real close to 24 hours)
I don't have casings, so I use my LEM Jerky Cannon and did some as sticks and some as strips. Using Qmatz in MES 30. With Apple/Cherry/Pecan 40/40/20.
Started the smoker at 130 and increase by 10 degrees every hour until it was at 170. When the stix hit an IT of 150, bump the smoker to 210 until the sticks reach 160. Then pulled, halved and in quick ice bath, rinsed and wipe any excess grease off them and in fridge overnight to stablize.
Mrs thinks they are going to be to spicy for her, but they are not crazy spicy by any means. Great flavor, I think they came out great.
I am real pleased with how well they came out using the LEM Jerky Cannon. They held together very nicely. I am not please with the clean up of the Jerky Cannon but I suspect that is true with any similar device.
A couple of tips: With the sticks when you shoot them on the QMATZ, its very hard to hold a straight line, but you can roll them back and forth a bit and straighten them out without issue. If you plan to use your fancy Smoke needle probe to monitor the IT then you need to leave a stick short so that you have room for the probe. As you can see in the photos I discovered this tip when I put them in the smoker.
There was little to no grease on them after the Ice bath, so I would say that the heating process was perfect and I didn't have any issues with fat rendering.
Total time was 8 hours for bottom to racks and 30 extra minutes for top 2 racks, but it started raining pretty good right around 4 1/2 hours in, which I am sure effected how quickly they dried.
I checked the smoke at hour 3, and felt it needed more. The AMNPS burned out making the turn. My fault I wasn't to careful with loading the corner because I figured I wouldn't need that much smoke. I probably got 4 or so hours of smoke, and they don't have a strong smoke taste, but we will see what the morning brings. I suspect next time I will give them 4 or 5 hours of pure pecan smoke.
With the mods I have made to my MES 30 I get pretty even temps, but the about 3/4 of an inch from the back wall and the door do get a bit more heat as it travels up the smoker, so about a 1/4 of the ends burned. Next time I will make them shorter. This batch pretty much perfectly fit the space I have in the MES 30. I could have gotten a couple more sticks, definitely would not be able to do a 5 pound batch at one time.
I was really surprised that the IT of the strips pretty much stayed right with the sticks. I would have thought since they were thinner they would have been quicker.
If you like "chewy" jerky you will probably like the strips, if you like meatier then you will probably like the sticks.
If you want to see how much thermal mass and opening the door etc. effects you smoker, get a needle probe and do a batch of sticks. Once they got in the 130-140 range, I would tell when the heat element shut off quicker by seeing the IT drop than I could the smoker temp. And within 20 seconds of opening the door the IT would start to fall.
I think I covered everything, thanks again Robert for your generous offer, you were dead on, if folks like spicy snack sticks this recipe is great! Now I need to either find a Teriyaki recipe for ground jerky for the Mrs. or try my hand at Teriyaki muscle jerky for her.
Tx Smoker (Robert), was generous enough to not only share his recipe, but also send a few of us samples of the American Harvest seasonings his is using. Can't say enough about how great the folks on this forum are!!
Below is my report from my results, for the original recipe etc. be sure to check out the thread I linked to above.
==
I don't have a grinder, so used 94/6 ground beef and ground pork.
I did 1 1/2 tsp of Chipotle Chile in place of both the Cayenne and Robert's pepper mix. Followed the rest of the recipe exactly. Hoping it won't be to spicy for the Mrs. I made the mix and let it sit in fridge overnight (real close to 24 hours)
I don't have casings, so I use my LEM Jerky Cannon and did some as sticks and some as strips. Using Qmatz in MES 30. With Apple/Cherry/Pecan 40/40/20.
Started the smoker at 130 and increase by 10 degrees every hour until it was at 170. When the stix hit an IT of 150, bump the smoker to 210 until the sticks reach 160. Then pulled, halved and in quick ice bath, rinsed and wipe any excess grease off them and in fridge overnight to stablize.
Mrs thinks they are going to be to spicy for her, but they are not crazy spicy by any means. Great flavor, I think they came out great.
I am real pleased with how well they came out using the LEM Jerky Cannon. They held together very nicely. I am not please with the clean up of the Jerky Cannon but I suspect that is true with any similar device.
A couple of tips: With the sticks when you shoot them on the QMATZ, its very hard to hold a straight line, but you can roll them back and forth a bit and straighten them out without issue. If you plan to use your fancy Smoke needle probe to monitor the IT then you need to leave a stick short so that you have room for the probe. As you can see in the photos I discovered this tip when I put them in the smoker.
There was little to no grease on them after the Ice bath, so I would say that the heating process was perfect and I didn't have any issues with fat rendering.
Total time was 8 hours for bottom to racks and 30 extra minutes for top 2 racks, but it started raining pretty good right around 4 1/2 hours in, which I am sure effected how quickly they dried.
I checked the smoke at hour 3, and felt it needed more. The AMNPS burned out making the turn. My fault I wasn't to careful with loading the corner because I figured I wouldn't need that much smoke. I probably got 4 or so hours of smoke, and they don't have a strong smoke taste, but we will see what the morning brings. I suspect next time I will give them 4 or 5 hours of pure pecan smoke.
With the mods I have made to my MES 30 I get pretty even temps, but the about 3/4 of an inch from the back wall and the door do get a bit more heat as it travels up the smoker, so about a 1/4 of the ends burned. Next time I will make them shorter. This batch pretty much perfectly fit the space I have in the MES 30. I could have gotten a couple more sticks, definitely would not be able to do a 5 pound batch at one time.
I was really surprised that the IT of the strips pretty much stayed right with the sticks. I would have thought since they were thinner they would have been quicker.
If you like "chewy" jerky you will probably like the strips, if you like meatier then you will probably like the sticks.
If you want to see how much thermal mass and opening the door etc. effects you smoker, get a needle probe and do a batch of sticks. Once they got in the 130-140 range, I would tell when the heat element shut off quicker by seeing the IT drop than I could the smoker temp. And within 20 seconds of opening the door the IT would start to fall.
I think I covered everything, thanks again Robert for your generous offer, you were dead on, if folks like spicy snack sticks this recipe is great! Now I need to either find a Teriyaki recipe for ground jerky for the Mrs. or try my hand at Teriyaki muscle jerky for her.
