@veman Yeah, you want to add JUST enough water to cover all your meat, put it in the smallest container possible so you can add less water, remember, any water you add to the meat you will have to cook or dehydrate out.

The Hawaiian seasoning is milder than some of the hotter seasonings; it has a nice tropical flavor profile with a touch of pineapple. I think, as a seasoning for jerky, the drying process would intensify the flavor and give a nice finished product–something my wife and grandkids would like; not too salty or too spicy. Tbone, I also think adding a little soy sauce and maybe some pineapple juice would be great. Let’s see some pictures and a taste report when you get it done. Best, G

@tbone I’d be leery of that because as you dehydrate meat it becomes more difficult to kill off the bad bacteria. Basically, you are creating heat-resistant bacteria and without enough moisture, you can’t kill it. Check out this article for more information on this https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/meat-preparation/jerky-and-food-safety/ct_index

@tbone First, glad the imitation bacon came out great, we love that stuff and need to make more of it! As for how it is going to work for bacon jerky my only worry would be that it might get crumbly as it gets dried to that level. It works with regular bacon because it is still a whole muscle piece of meat, when you grind it down and restructure it, you are getting a very good bind BUT it’s still not the same as a regular whole muscle piece. In the end I think you will be perfectly fine but that is the only “danger” I wanted to point out! Let us know how it turns out!

@tbone Glad that the taste was great! If you are using a non-stuck casing then yes you do want to perforate it, this allows for the sausage to bleed out of the casing and then the casing to form tightly to the meat. What sort of casing were you using? If it was a fibrous casing you still shouldn’t have had this issue but if it was plastic I can see that happening. The time it took to get there seems pretty high but you weren’t in any danger there, the cure had you covered. It sounds like too much water was used in the mixture, I know you used carrot fiber, how much water did you use for your 10 lb chub? I would suspect that the correct level of protein extraction was not reached, the water should have been bound up in the meat better than that. Now, I know that some people reading this will be saying to themselves, or maybe even out loud, there he goes blaming protein extraction like he ALWAYS DOES! Well, that is because it is so often the issue with any cooking problems you might have. Seriously, if you are making a cured product, once you have gotten what you think is good protein extraction mix for another 3 minutes or so, it will help! I’d also try using a probe thermometer and check the actual temperature of your smoker. If you set it for 150° is it actually there or did it only reach 140°, the easiest way to do this is with a probe thermometer system like the GrillEye or the GrillEye Pro Plus, they come with a clip that allows the probe to not touch the metal so it will give you an accurate reading. So, in short I think you are right in what happened though, I think the meat released all of the added water and then that created a barrier and it was having problems passing meat through that and then into the center of the meat. That should never have happen to that extent though and I think protein extraction was more of the culprit! Hope this helped, let me know if you need anything else.