Most things I’ve written recently have been simply too intense to make for good Pub chatter, so here’s something else:
I love beef jerky. It’s one of my favorite snacks, so I’ve been dehydrating my own for more than ten years. Alas, the price of beef here has risen so significantly in the last six months that I can no longer justify the cost. So last week I attempted my first batch of pork jerky, and here’s how it went.
I should preface this by saying that I prefer my jerky suitable for an Arctic expedition or wagon train to Oregon--dry, dry, dry. More like meat crackers than the gooey stuff that passes for jerky on store shelves these days, so keep that in mind. I also do not add sugar, but that is more of a personal preference.
I suspect pretty much any jerky marinade would work, but my beef go-to is a mixture of soy sauce, sriracha, and Worcestershire sauce (the original, with anchovies). I add black pepper, red pepper flakes, and powdered ginger to taste. I kept the proportions the same for the pork so I could do a fair comparison.
I used a 30 year old Excalibur dehydrator for this work. That poor company got et by private equity a ways back, and while it’s still a going concern, the quality of their products and service is much diminished. Still, this old analog beast is hanging in there. A convection oven would probably work just as well.
I used a pork loin, trimmed as clean as I could manage. A few hours in the freezer set it up enough to slice around 1/16“ thick. It slices much easier than beef, so that was a pleasant surprise. Usually my poor arthritic hands are aching after doing 8 pounds of eye round!
I did my usual 12-16 hour marinate, and the pork seemed to absorb the marinade a bit more than beef, or at least it didn’t release any extra liquid. There was no puddle in the bottom of the bowl, which was nice--less wet meat makes the dehydrator trays easier to clean.
I cranked the dehydrator to its maximum temperature setting of 165F. My thinking here was to get it out of the bacterial growth danger zone as quickly as possible. Was it strictly necessary? Maybe not, but better safe than sorry if you’re storing pork at room temp.
After five hours I checked the pork, and it had a weird translucent tan color, and an odd texture in the mouth I didn’t much care for. Thankfully, after ten hours--my usual run-time for beef--it had darkened significantly, and taken on a more pleasant mouthfeel. After letting it cool, time for the final taste test!
It’s different. Not bad at all, but different. My concern was that it would taste like bacon, and there is blessedly not even a hint of that. The grain of the muscle is much less pronounced than with beef, so it has a smoother texture. The thinner slices are crunchier than similarly-sliced beef. Certain flavors of the marinade come through more strongly than with beef. The soy sauce flavor is more pronounced, and the black pepper hits much harder. I’ll have to adjust my marinade recipe a bit, but this was successful enough for me to want to continue with it.
Thanks for listening to me blather on.