Well, this could be a jerky thread, but it's really more about the test of the MES Custom SS build than it is about the product being smoked.
As I recently completed the complete tear down, heavy modification, and rebuild of a MES Custom SS (SS for sticks and sausage), it was time to actually put some meat on those racks and see how this build would perform. I did expect some learning curve as this is about as far from stock as a MES can be so I'm in unknown territory on performance.
I had some Smoking Gun Jerky Marinade that I needed to use, so since I was familiar with the flavor profile it produced, I figured some sliced muscle jerky with SGJM would be a good trial for the first run. I like this stuff, and wish there was someone closer to me (or Amazon) who carried it as it costs me more to ship it to GA than a gallon of the marinade costs in the first place. Yeah, I know... there are plenty of good recipes out there that can be made locally (and I have done so), but I like the "jerky rounds" made with SGJM.
Trimmed up about 4.5 lbs of beef round and cut into 1/4" thick slices by hand. Then divided into 2 zip lock bags. I put a cup of marinade in each bag after mixing in the appropriate amount of cure #1. I know the SGJM says no cure needed, but I use cure in all my jerky or ground meat projects that are going to be smoked. Marinaded for about 14 hours, mixing the bags up every time I walked by the fridge.
I had previously run a couple of trays of chips at 170* thorough the MES Custom SS to start seasoning the interior. No oil, just smoke. You can see the results of that in the photos below.
4.5 lbs took about 3 1/2 racks. I could have probably squeezed it into 3, but wanted decent air flow. I should be able to fit 10 lbs in on a run without any difficulty (I'm ordering 1 more rack to replace that top rack that I moved or else I'm building something to slide in the drip pan area). For this smoke I took the stock rack for the water and chip pans out and moved the top rack to that position to hold a disposable pan top as a drip pan and heat baffle. I also moved the PID pit sensor to the top rack position on the right side. I expected the lowest temps at the top due to the meat sucking heat out of the air column as it rose.
Here we have the finished product. I did rotate the racks twice during the smoke which ran about 8 hours. I ran an hour at 120* to dry the surface, then kicked to 140* for 2 hours with smoke, then to 165* without smoke to finish to desired bend-a-bility of the jerky. The temps seemed even side to side and front to back on a rack, but as expected the lower racks ran hotter. But, I can deal with that by rotating the rack positions in the heat column.
The finished jerky had a better flavor profile (as far as smoke flavor) than the exact same marinade from the same batch on Jerky that was smoked in my e-WSM mod. I'm very pleased with the results and this was worth the effort. Next smoke will be some snack sticks.
Mmmmmmm..... tasty!!!!!!!!
