Dry cured pork jerky

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crankybuzzard

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Jan 4, 2014
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Montague County, TX
I've had some pork jerky made by others in the past and liked it, but I've never made any myself. So, Sunday night I started a batch.

I wanted to do a couple of things different this time, I wanted to dry cure prior to smoking and drying, and I wanted to slice the meat thicker than usual.

I had an 8 pound pork loin in the frig and began slicing pieces 1/4-3/8" thick until I had just a tad over 5 pounds of sliced pork.

I mixed up the following dry cure and applied to the meat.

1 tsp cure #1
5 Tbs Brown Sugar
2.5 Tbs Smoked kosher salt
5 tsp Garlic Powder
5 tsp Onion Powder
5 tsp course ground Black pepper
5 tsp. Worcestershire powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less if desired)

I put the mixed ingredients into a shaker bottle and covered one side of the meat. I allowed the meat to sit for a minute or so before flipping.

After coating both sides of all of the meat, I put all of the meat into a 1-gallon ziplock and put it in the frig for 72 hours. This afternoon, I came home, pulled the meat out of the bag, placed the meat on my "fancy" hangers, and stuck them into the smoker at 120 to dry a bit.

Hickory smoke will begin soon in the Amazen tray, and the temp will bump to 130. I'll bump the temp up 10 degrees each hour until I hit 150, then it'll dry at that temp until I get back home later. Smoke stops after 3 hours or so.

Heading back to work after I set the temp at 150 and will be back home around 11:00 PM central to check on it. If it isn't ready by then, I'll drop the temp to 120 and let it go until 6:00 AM tomorrow.

Anyone see any holes in my plan?
 
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I'm In 
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Finished the jerky up this morning and took it inside for a taste test.  Oh yeah!  This WILL be made again ASAP since 2.41 pounds (final weight) just isn't gonna last long!

This is fresh from the smokehouse



After completely cooling, I pulled a piece apart to check the texture, spot on for me!



So, 72 hours dry cure, 1.5 hours drying with no smoke (120°), 4 hours of smoke (130-150°), 8 hours no smoke (125°).

You'll see this one being made again very soon!
 
Thanks Richie!  You're correct, the list never ends does it?

I brought some in to a couple of my coworkers and they are raving about it.

Since this was my first go at a dry brine on jerky, and also a first for pork jerky, I just hope I can recreate it!
 
awesome man! im gonna try to make some pork jerky myself. Kroger is having a sale right now on pork loins for 1.49 a lb I just bought 3 5 lb loins last day of the sale so I might have to buy a couple more. tomorrow pork butts go on sale for that same price
 
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