Wasn't sure where to put this.If this is not the right place feel free to move. Thank you.
Saw a small 7.5# boneless pork loin and thought jerky. Trimmed it up and cut into sections and sliced with the grain by hand, thickness varies a bit but it worked out well. Some may have been close 3/8 thick. I separated the fat striped meat from the rest. The fat striped I keep for myself usually.
Had about 6.5# after trimming, I had found some cure packets out of some old Shore Lunch kits, they had cure, salt and brown sugar listed on them. 2 teaspoons to a pound is what directions said, so I went with 4 tablespoons and added 2 T fine black pepper, 1.5T granulated garlic and 1T of sea/natural salt. I put it in a shaker and sprinkled and stacked on a sheet pan, then with what I had left in the shaker I put more on each layer as I stacked them in the little cambro container. Into the fridge for 2 days.
Started the Pit Boss CH7 at 150, and laid the strips out not really crowding them, I also sprinkled some Black Pepper Garlic seasoning, that was with the cure packets I found,over the ops before I put them in. 8:00 AM start I rotated them about 6 hours in and took them off at 10 hours. Put in the gray lug and left sit a few hours, covered with sheet pan before bed then the next day cut them and packaged and sealed up (I thought I had pictures of that but I guess not).
Did not turn out bad for just using up some stuff I found in the cupboard. I did like the stacking and dry brine if you will, over the usual wet brine I have done in the past. Thank you YorkDude (I hope that was the person with the post that did it that way.) I will be doing it this way again. Thinking chicken breast will be my next go, we bought a 40# case in 10# bags of boneless skinless breasts from Gordons Food Service (solution added) They were huge breasts, 7 halves to a bag. I think they will make nice jerky strips.
The smoker set at 150, well i went out to check a few ties and it would drop to as low as 140 and the highest I had seen was 215 so a lot of movement there.I may do as Barb B Lew mentioned one time about smoke for 4 hours then finish in dehydrator, the big Cabelas dehydrator moves more air I believe than the Copperhead.
Thanks for looking.
