Pork Jerky - do I have to cook it before dehydrating it?

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ayofarm

Newbie
Original poster
Jun 21, 2014
1
10
Hey all, 

I think this is the right place to ask this, even if not, I hope someone will have the answer - we have a pretty large pig farm and wanted to make pork jerky for our customers. I normally would not think to cook a red meat for jerky, like venison or beef, but what about pork? We definitely want it to be prepared safely, we are kind of new to dehydrating meat and thought about getting the excalibur dehydrator.

Thanks for any advice!
 
If the meat is not cured with #1, it needs to brought up to 160* relatively quickly to kill any bacteria present before it dries. Bacteria can become desensitized to heat once the meat is already dried...it takes wet heat to kill them, hence heating it up before it is dry.

You may want to browse through the jerky forum a bit more and also the food safety forum. Being you intend to sell this product, you need to check into local and state regulations so you know if there are specific additional standards you need to follow, but the 2013 US  Food Code will cover everything (it's the complete regulations governing food handling and preparation for retail food service in the US).

Eric
 
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