Nice tutorial. I liked how you instructed to quickly get to 160 to kill pathogens, and THEN dry, instead of the much riskier “just dry in dehydrator for a long time”.
I’d love to see you go into a bit more and better detail on how to get salt right, what range is normal and most folks like, etc.
The big challenge to making good jerky, getting salt/seasoning correct, was kinda glossed over though.
A big issue with jerky is getting the amount of seasoning and salt correct, after drying and the salt concentration that causes. This depends on the amount of seasoning per kg meat used, the amount of water used to create various brine strength, and the amount of salt uptake… which depends on length of marinade, and brine strength. You used a vacuum tumbler which also changes marinade time a lot vs most home makers.
I’d like to see some discussion and numbers for what % salt needs to be in the meat for good taste, and how to get that amount correct using equilibrium brine as the marinade. You mentioned “use as little water as you can because you’ll have to dry it back out”, but if one guy uses a half cup of water and another guy uses 2 cups, that changes the brine strength and maybe salt uptake by 400% ! Depending on how long the marinade is, you could end up with 1000% difference in final saltiness, both guys starting with same total amount of spice mix.
With jerky thickness, you can reach equilibrium just overnight, and drying back out is likewise quick, so there is no reason not to exactly control the final salt with a few calculations. Your vids are great, but I’d love to see you take it just a little bit further toward the calculations needed to ensure professional consistency.
Thanks for all you do and all the great content!
