Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

Prepared my first jerky style meat to marinate for the next couple days. It’s a warm room temp drying process and a meat stick called Biltong. South African by lineage and can end up on a cracker or by itself.
Cured in thumb thick cut steaks cut with the grain, then served, cut across the grain.




Now the slabs are in a ziploc bag to marinade for 2 days.

It’s an equilibrium brine so can run longer.
Now I can build my drying box. These are designed to air dry at 70-80’, but I have pets, so need a safety enclosure. Plus if I get into sausages, a proofing, or fermenting box will be needed anyway.


Hope these turn out, and I like the heavy coriander finish..
Cheers.

I spy with my little eye a 2 guys and a cooler recipe---

I for one am looking forward to hearing about how this comes out

Got home from being out with the wife today and there was a very large traeger box sitting in front of the garage!
Happy I live in an area without aggressive porch piracy.

Some assembly clearly required, but damn fast shipping! Will be tested well before the bacon’s ready to go on next weekend.

Traeger is built, burnt in and maiden meal behind me.

Pizza and wings, an easy start to a new way to grill.

Weren’t to shabby. Heats up surprisingly fast for a wood based grill. But the forced air and pellets really stoke it I suppose.

And my Biltong is done marinating and it is time to hang them up to dry cure.
Ideally they would hang over the sink in the window from a rack and breezes would do their thing.
But we have cats that climb and like to go looking for food while we sleep so I needed to build a catproof Biltong box first.

Opaque tote with some dowels for racks, a stove lamp at the bottom and a pc exhaust fan at the top, bunch of holes covered for bugs and paw protection, done. Should stay around 72’ inside and great airflow. I’ve left a temp/humidity meter in the bottom to keep an eye on ambient.
Onto the meat hanging stage, using sterilized paperclips covered in vinyl for hooks. Tags with wet and target weight on each one to track the moisture loss.
Look at all those spices that’ll make an awesome bark when dried!
i


Should be done in 5 days or so, based on normal weight loss and a target of 60% loss overall.
Kitchen smells amazing, floral and nutty, must be the coriander, but the chili flakes, salt, pepper and Worcestershire should really come through in the taste..
Can’t wait to test them!!
Should be done right about when the bacon is ready to smoke!
Cheers and good eats men.

I sure hope that the cats don't understand that the phrase means them--

"But we have cats that climb and like to go looking for food while we sleep so I needed to build a catproof Biltong box first".

They can be pretty ingenious when it comes to a problem---hehehe

First nights drying went well. Smells of curing meat have diminished as the water leaves. Internal temp rose to 76 with the meat in the box so perfect temp, low humidity on the meter= great airflow.
Lost 25% water weight in the first day. It’ll slow down as it draws it out to the surface but it was a consistent 25% weight loss across the pieces in the box so airflow is good, no damp or dead spots, circulation wise.
Figure the fan has increased airflow over air drying by at least 50% so I’m happy with the progress so far.
Meat is darkening and lookin good! Might even be done before 5 days passed.

Well while we're waiting for Mike's Biltong I decided to play with my InkBird---

I made a batch of Jerky and the newest addition to the smoker worked great.

I seasoned the meat and left it covered in the frig overnight to absorb the marinade, then I placed it on the racks and let it dry. Here's the nice part. I set the InkBird to 100 degs F and it held right at 100. I held it there for around an hour till the meat started to feel tacky. Then I added the smoke tube, it only increased around 2-3 degs so it was still drying but also smoking. See here--



The smoke was coming out real nice and it did so for around a couple of hours--



Once the smoking was done, I opened up the damper and raised the temp to 150 and it held right there until the jerky was done.



No the screen isn't wrong, there were reflections that I was trying to deal with, It is right at 150.

So it worked well and I'm very pleased.

Yea I know, I know, here's a pic of the jerky--



Thanks for looking

Good looking jerky Roy.
So the ink bird just switches on or off the outlet based on the thermoprobe feedback and heats a hot plate?
Very easy set up for smoking..

Oh and the Biltong is almost done! Average weight is under 50% now so could be sampling the skinnier bits soon!

I have used switches like that for many applications such as heat tracing pipe, decrystalizing honey, and curing tobbacco.

Never in a smoker though.