Posts made by jhouse5848

Thanks, craigrice & Rambow

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.

Tex_77 thanks for the response. It didn’t seem to matter if it had pressure on the return stroke or not, it would just happen each time. I’m thinking the PAM-type spray may be useful to at least try.

I recently purchased a brand new Walton’s 10" Meat Slicer and used it for the first time tonight. I have never owned or had any experience with any slicers before so my question may come off as naive!

Tonight I had 2 Eye of Round roasts to slice up for jerky. I trimmed them nicely and placed in the freezer for 35 minutes to get them cooler for slicing. When I ran them on the slicer the first cuts seemed nice but then after a half-dozen slices the return stroke started to cause the meat to stick and try and rotate the meat. This was unexpected by me and began to feel dangerous to adjust while the blade was running. The 2nd roast I sliced up seemed to exacerbate the situation with the roast almost turning a full 90 degrees on some return strokes.

I did ensure the roast was flush on the carriage portion but it just didn’t seem to matter.

Some questions:

1. Is this simply normal and expected behavior?
2. Should I have left the meat in the freezer longer?
3. Would some simple cooking spray alleviate the issue to help the meat from “sticking” to the guard area on the return stroke?
4. Is there just something obvious I’m doing wrong?

Thanks,
John

Austin Thanks for the detailed reply. I will join team orange!

Apologies… but what is the team orange vs team blue stuff about? Is one team focused on any specific type of meat area or is it just some fun camaraderie amongst users?

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!

badfire2625 Thank you for the warm welcome! I currently own a Jambo Backyard and just recently purchased a used mobile Southern Pride SPK-500. I’m a bit of a habitual smoker-flipper. Over the years I’ve owned and then sold a Big Green Egg XL, Klose offset, Yoder YS640, and a Backwoods Fatboy. Cooking/food has always been a big hobby and pleasure of mine – notably BBQ!

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.