Good morning! I've had the strips going for 3.5 hours now. There were some small pieces I had in there and my wife and I have been able to sample the batch. So far so good!
Half of the batch I finished off with cracked pepper and left the other half plain. I can already see the value of a slicer. And I can tell now that I hadn't trimmed off all of the fat like I had presumed; some of the strips from the exterior of the steak still have some. I've been checking it about every 30-60 minutes and blotting the strips off, especially those with the unwanted fat.
Yeah, I was quite hesitant to boil the meat. You are both right, it doesn't sound good. Safety first, however. I believe that were I to not boil it, and rather finish it off in a smoker or even the oven, it would probably be fine. I guess you just want to be sure the meat gets to a sufficient temperature for a long enough period (I read at least 140 degrees for a minimum of 10 minutes).
cajunsmoker, the Jesus Bacon thing is essentially two things that I love. I think it is humorous because Jesus was Jewish, and Jewish people don't really eat bacon. I'm not Jewish, so I can eat all the bacon I want (well, actually I can eat all the bacon my wife will allow me ... lol).
I'm also using this experiment to get my wife excited about smoked meats so I can get a decent smoker in the near future. I figure if I can get her to ask me to make more jerky, I've then laid the ground work for the next phase of my meat cooking evolution. Any pointers on this topic would be greatly appreciated as well ... lol.