- Aug 27, 2008
- 5,170
- 409
I had a chance to do my first un-cased beef snack sticks, and another batch of strips today. I hadn’t used the Vault for a cold smoke yet, so this was to be a closely watched process. The home-made snack sticks will be a new treat for us as well.
I didn’t have a full set of jerky grates, and that’s part of the reason for making a split batch with strips and snack sticks…I figured the sticks would be less likely to sag between the wire openings of the regular meat grates, and also, I needed to bulk-up the meat somewhat in order to be able to fit it all onto 4 grates. This looks to be a good idea...as it turns out, I used almost 3-1/2 grates to shoot all the meat onto, and approx. 55% was snack sticks, the rest strips. The jerky grate, you'll notice, is rather crowded.
I did run out of jerky grate space for the strips, as I had a 2 lb batch of regular seasoned meat for the strips and I actually need 1-½ grate spaces for that amount of strips. We’ll see how the ½ grate of remaining strips on the normal rack holds up.
The meat was mixed with seasoning and cure @ 9:00 PM last night. The snack sticks went into the Vault @ 9:00 AM this morning. The jerky strips went in @ 9:15 AM, and I estimate that they will take about 1/3 to ½ the amount of time as the sticks based on cross sectional density.
Meat, seasonings and cure is as follows: 2 lb of 85/15 for the strips, seasoned and cured with the regular jerky seasoning/cure packets contained in the Nesco/American Harvest Jerky Works kit. For the snack sticks, I had a remaining 2.6 lbs of the same meat, enough Teriaki seasoning and cure for 2 lbs, so I added 2/3 Tbls of Tender Quick and ½ tsp of fine ground black pepper to the mix.
Here they are @ 10:00 AM, no smoke wood (per wifey‘s request, as she liked the oven dried batch last time so much), @ temps of 120*, climbing to 150* (1 hr for the sticks and .75 hr for the strips. Notice the coloring on the right hand ends of the sticks...they are warming through faster, which I expected due to previous smoke observations:
With the burner on low, an added 24” chimney stack for additional draft, and the lower vents fully open, and ambient temps of 72* with no wind, she wants to run a bit hotter than I’d like to see. I will try to dial the burner setting down in the “warm” position and see how that goes…hopefully the flame will hold out with light/variable winds. The smoker is set-up with a lot of equipment and structures close-by acting as wind breaks, as well.
I did run the burner control back through the high setting over to warm and got a pretty steady 115-120* temp after about 15 minutes of fine adjustments. I’m sure this wouldn’t be possible in windy conditions, so I must have planned this on the right day for the best results, just by sheer luck.
3-½ hours in for the snack sticks, temps are still ~115-120* and things are lookin’ sweet (and spicey)...I just love it how curing agents or smoke colors the meat like this...purty:
Lessons learned thus far:
1. start out with the lowest flame setting you can keep lit, to maintain lower starting cook temps;
2. regular meat grates will work OK, but do cause some sagging once the meat starts to warm through. Some rolling/lifting may be required to release the meat at the finish. I am trying to move the meat just a bit while checking texture to help, but it is too early to carried away without risk of tearing the sticks apart.
3. the strips sag less than the snack sticks due to a lower cross-sectional density/larger surface area contacting the grate to support the meat's own weight...I hadn't thought about that one, but it does make sense now that I've seen it first hand.
4. I spyed some jerky grates for the Bradly Digital Smoker for 30 bucks per package of 4, with dimensions that would work out for 2 Bradleys per 1 Vault grate position, with a bit of spare room. I've been thinking about ordering 2 sets, to do 5 full rack positions of jerky at one time...I would need some way of supporting the 2 seperate Bradley grates while in the Vault for one (now empty) space, and I have some ideas already. Now, I am thinking that one set will be enough. More on this another day.
So far, so good!
I'll be back with the finished pics and total batch weights later.
Thanks for peekin'!
Eric
I didn’t have a full set of jerky grates, and that’s part of the reason for making a split batch with strips and snack sticks…I figured the sticks would be less likely to sag between the wire openings of the regular meat grates, and also, I needed to bulk-up the meat somewhat in order to be able to fit it all onto 4 grates. This looks to be a good idea...as it turns out, I used almost 3-1/2 grates to shoot all the meat onto, and approx. 55% was snack sticks, the rest strips. The jerky grate, you'll notice, is rather crowded.
I did run out of jerky grate space for the strips, as I had a 2 lb batch of regular seasoned meat for the strips and I actually need 1-½ grate spaces for that amount of strips. We’ll see how the ½ grate of remaining strips on the normal rack holds up.
The meat was mixed with seasoning and cure @ 9:00 PM last night. The snack sticks went into the Vault @ 9:00 AM this morning. The jerky strips went in @ 9:15 AM, and I estimate that they will take about 1/3 to ½ the amount of time as the sticks based on cross sectional density.
Meat, seasonings and cure is as follows: 2 lb of 85/15 for the strips, seasoned and cured with the regular jerky seasoning/cure packets contained in the Nesco/American Harvest Jerky Works kit. For the snack sticks, I had a remaining 2.6 lbs of the same meat, enough Teriaki seasoning and cure for 2 lbs, so I added 2/3 Tbls of Tender Quick and ½ tsp of fine ground black pepper to the mix.
Here they are @ 10:00 AM, no smoke wood (per wifey‘s request, as she liked the oven dried batch last time so much), @ temps of 120*, climbing to 150* (1 hr for the sticks and .75 hr for the strips. Notice the coloring on the right hand ends of the sticks...they are warming through faster, which I expected due to previous smoke observations:
With the burner on low, an added 24” chimney stack for additional draft, and the lower vents fully open, and ambient temps of 72* with no wind, she wants to run a bit hotter than I’d like to see. I will try to dial the burner setting down in the “warm” position and see how that goes…hopefully the flame will hold out with light/variable winds. The smoker is set-up with a lot of equipment and structures close-by acting as wind breaks, as well.
I did run the burner control back through the high setting over to warm and got a pretty steady 115-120* temp after about 15 minutes of fine adjustments. I’m sure this wouldn’t be possible in windy conditions, so I must have planned this on the right day for the best results, just by sheer luck.
3-½ hours in for the snack sticks, temps are still ~115-120* and things are lookin’ sweet (and spicey)...I just love it how curing agents or smoke colors the meat like this...purty:
Lessons learned thus far:
1. start out with the lowest flame setting you can keep lit, to maintain lower starting cook temps;
2. regular meat grates will work OK, but do cause some sagging once the meat starts to warm through. Some rolling/lifting may be required to release the meat at the finish. I am trying to move the meat just a bit while checking texture to help, but it is too early to carried away without risk of tearing the sticks apart.
3. the strips sag less than the snack sticks due to a lower cross-sectional density/larger surface area contacting the grate to support the meat's own weight...I hadn't thought about that one, but it does make sense now that I've seen it first hand.
4. I spyed some jerky grates for the Bradly Digital Smoker for 30 bucks per package of 4, with dimensions that would work out for 2 Bradleys per 1 Vault grate position, with a bit of spare room. I've been thinking about ordering 2 sets, to do 5 full rack positions of jerky at one time...I would need some way of supporting the 2 seperate Bradley grates while in the Vault for one (now empty) space, and I have some ideas already. Now, I am thinking that one set will be enough. More on this another day.
So far, so good!
I'll be back with the finished pics and total batch weights later.
Thanks for peekin'!
Eric