Pink Salt

[steevieg]

I marinated some beef last night to make jerky and realized this morning I forgot the pink salt.  Is it possible to add it to each piece just before I put it on the smoker and will it work as effectively?

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Ouch! No, it wont work in a short time like that...it needs time for the cure to do it's magic. And, if there's salt in the marinade (I'm sure there will be with it intended for cure), osmosis will already have occurred, and the cure won't penetrate the meat nearly as well, even if given a couple of days. If you increase the salt in the marinade by 50% or so when you add the cure could work, but you may have to soak it in fresh water for a few minutes to draw out some salt before smoking & drying.

Not to pry the recipe from your tight gripped fingers, but how much liquids and salt is in the marinade, say, per pound of meat? If it doesn't have a lot of worsty or soy sauce and other sodium containing products like ketchup, you may be able to get it cured without adding excessive amounts of salt.

You may need to get this figured out, cure added and just wait for next weekend, or your next available day to smoke and dry. It won't hurt anything to cure for extra time, but too little time or too little cure can be the game-breaker.

Eric

 

[steevieg]

It was a "kitchen sink" type of marinade, but I started it with 2 bottles of Moore's Hickory Marinade.  I added some garlic powder, onion powder, chipotle powder and a few spices.  The marinade had salt as the 2nd ingredient.  I really like the stuff and had a couple of bottles so I used it as the base.

I think I'll just cook the meat and use it over some mashed potatoes. 

Lesson learned.... Take out everything I plan to use beforehand.  No omissions that way..

Thank you very much for the reply.

 

[forluvofsmoke]

You're welcome. Hey, it's not a total loss at least...should make for some interesting mashed potatoes...not like with beef and regular brown gravy, but spiced beef...hmm...not a bad idea for use of marinaded beef. You have just stumbled onto a new dish!

Eric