My name is John House and I live in Sioux Falls, SD. I’ve been doing BBQ smoking for about 15 years and just recently took an interest in jerky making. Just recently I made my first purchases at Walton’s and intend to make my first batch this week!
I am excited to find this forum and learn from the extensive knowledge base you have all contributed towards.
Thanks Tex_77 and PapaSop. The jerky is moist in my opinion based on the tenderness. I will keep it in the fridge and just take some pieces out before eating to warm a bit. I am doing intermittent fasting so I had to wait to taste the jerky about 12 hours before tasting it earlier this afternoon. I was thrilled that it was edible and flavorful for a first go at it with a custom marinade/rub. Can’t wait to post more questions as I continue down this road!
badfire2625 You can’t go wrong with any of those pits. I didn’t get any approval from my wife for a big Jambo but was able to swing the small backyard model, which is still quite a beast. She doesn’t like to cook so that helps me justify all kinds of food gadgetry and gear!
Austin Thanks for the detailed reply. I will join team orange!
Thanks group – I did have it in the freezer for appx 40 minutes before slicing. Maybe next time I’ll double that!
marvsBBQ Welcome! I’m recently new to the group as well. I appreciate your hobby of owning bbq pits, I always aspire to do that too. I’ve been looking at the Lonestar Santa Maria unit as well. Someday I’ll have to pull the trigger on that!
PapaSop How does it all taste after vacuum sealing, freezing, and then thawing later? Does the texture suffer? I have a chamber vacuum sealer and a food saver I could use.
PapaSop Cheers to that!
One more question… how long can I keep the jerky in the fridge? Weeks?
Thanks Tex_77 and PapaSop. The jerky is moist in my opinion based on the tenderness. I will keep it in the fridge and just take some pieces out before eating to warm a bit. I am doing intermittent fasting so I had to wait to taste the jerky about 12 hours before tasting it earlier this afternoon. I was thrilled that it was edible and flavorful for a first go at it with a custom marinade/rub. Can’t wait to post more questions as I continue down this road!
I smoked my first batch of jerky last night and to my surprise it was delicious! I had low expectations for attempt #1 using a homemade recipe.
I did mix in the appropriate amount of cure for the weight of meat (7# of eye of round) with my seasonings and used a vacuum tumbler to marinade it all.
For my smoke, I did 3:10 at 190 and then ramped it up to 260 and once it hit that temp on the smoker I turned it all off which was roughly 10 more minutes. (technique is from a Youtube video I watched)
The jerky has a lot of brown sugar and is very tender. I sliced it on 7.5mm setting from my Walton’s 10" grinder.
MY QUESTION: Since I can’t definitively know the water activity level without a meter test, is it okay to leave Jerky in ziploc bags on the counter for a few days or should I keep the bags in the refrigerator as I’ve already done? It does have cure in it. I’m not a huge fan of eating cold jerky!
Thanks for any help!
John
AdamCA than you for the advice here. I will see if I can track down some oil in this case. I wasn’t slicing tens of pounds of meat last night but enough that it was a nuisance and I imagine would slow down a bigger batch quite a bit.