Jerky With No Curing Salt

[Jorge400]

Look up biltong recipes. It is dried beef or venison made in Africa with just a light salt/vinegar cure, then it is hung to dry. There is no curing salt used in it's production and you can hang it pretty much anywhere you have good air flow.

It follows the curing process used for dry aged sausages by combining simple salt with acid to prevent spoilage.

Jeremy

This is exactly what I do. No curing salts, no heat. I've been making biltong for the past 8-9 years. I have a curing box with a lightbulb in the bottom with vent holes and a computer fan in the top. I can only do it in the winter when humidity levels are low, but I hang strips of biltong for 3-5 days until the desired dryness. Anything I am not eating within a day or two I put in the freezer.

 

[treillw]

Last week I brought in a bag of uncured jerky to work, the person I gave it to was supposed to share it with everyone that day and if any was left at the end of the day he was supposed to put it in the fridge. He decided to hide it in his desk for a few days and it got moldy, so it doesn't take too long to spoil at room temp.

Does cure help mold? I would think that cure helps with bacteria, but not mold.

 

[treillw]

Lol the first time I made it I actually did and it turned out just fine. Decided to buy a dehydrator after that, saved myself some money and funny looks in the long run.
I was definitely more confident in using a lower temp to dehydrate after that experiment though

After seeing him use no cure and having it sit out at room temp for 8-12 hours, I'm suddenly no longer worried. haha

 

[Desk Jockey]

I make a lot with a jerky gun and ground meat. No pink salt. Dehydrator, let it cool to room temp, portion it in bags and freeze it. I pull out a bag whenever needed. Defrosts in less than an hour. I have had it sit for days with no issues.

 

[ODB]

I never use it. I usually keep extra in the fridge so the wife doesn’t worry, but I’ll eat that shit a week old sitting on the counter looking fuzzy...

 

[Azone]

I never use it. I usually keep extra in the fridge so the wife doesn’t worry, but I’ll eat that shit a week old sitting on the counter looking fuzzy...

It appears I'm not alone then.

 

[treillw]

Is it definitely OK to not use it in summer sausage?

I don't see why it would be any different than whole muscle or ground jerky.

 

[Tod osier]

Is it definitely OK to not use it in summer sausage?

I don't see why it would be any different than whole muscle or ground jerky.

I do not think it is safe to eliminate cure from summer sausage and think that doing so would be dangerous. The reason that jerky is safe without is because: 1) the low water content, 2) high salt content, 3) rapid drying and 4) high heat. Summer sausage is the opposite for all listed (1-4), which would promote bacterial growth.

 

[Azone]

Is it definitely OK to not use it in summer sausage?

I don't see why it would be any different than whole muscle or ground jerky.

I will/would ALWAYS use it in a ground meat product that will be smoked or dry cured.
I do strips of whole muscle when I do jerky so kosher salt and red wine (the acid in it) do my preserving and fend off the bacteria that would cause spoilage or rancid flavors. I did get some jerky from a guy I know one time that got me sick, only had a couple bites and I chucked the rest, it tasted "off" and low and behold the bowel movements that followed the next day were not fun. What this mans process of making it was I dont know but it sucked and was obviously not safe and I never ate any of his products again. If anything tastes off or smells off it goes to the dog or trash can, food poisoning is a real M F'er from my experience with it.

 

[treillw]

I do not think it is safe to eliminate cure from summer sausage

Even if I make it the same way as I do the jerky? Mix everything up, stuff it, into the oven for a couple of hours till temp gets above 165, cool in fridge overnight, vacuum pack and freeze, thaw in fridge, store in fridge and enjoy within a week??

If it was a meatloaf, or baked ziti, I would have no problem eating it.

 

[Tod osier]

Even if I make it the same way as I do the jerky? Mix everything up, stuff it, into the oven for a couple of hours till temp gets above 165, cool in fridge overnight, vacuum pack and freeze, thaw in fridge, store in fridge and enjoy within a week??

If it was a meatloaf, or baked ziti, I would have no problem eating it.

I don't want to get into semantics, but summer sausage has cure in it, by definition. Summer sausage keeps longer because of the cure and people will treat it like it has cure in it if you call it summer sausage. If you want to make a meat product without cure, my feeling is that what you propose is OK if you treat it as outlined above, but don't go off my blessing...

Without cure the color will definately be off (brown or gray vs red) and the texture may be off.

165 is also real close to the temp that will melt your fat. Folks that make snack sticks are really careful with the temp in that range to be sure to keep the proper look of the fat (rather than have it melt out).

 

[JoeDirt]

Might be worth taking a curing class, i know there are a few around.

What about the old smokehouse method instead of using pink salt?

 

[EastMT]

If you cook it at a hot temp you would be ok, where the damage comes is the dwell time for the temp to pass above 130. 80-130 is known as the danger zone, really fast growth of pathogens.

I’ve done summer sausage in 1” diameter just laid out on a rack at 200 deg, no casing. It makes great hot dogs for camping, with mustard.

Any fully cooked meat is safe, as long as the come up temp is fast. Another thing people forgot is the cool down time.

Without cure, you should cool from 130-80 in less than 1.5 hours, 80-40 in less than 5 hours. If you do not cool down fast enough you can grow dangerous bacteria again.

Because something is cooked to say 165, it is not sterile. There is what’s known as a log reduction. 6 log reduction is essentially 99.9999% reduction of bacteria. But holding in warm temps while cooling down can then grow the bacteria back to dangerous levels.

USDA Appendix A is the cooking temp guidelines to read, USDA appendix B is the cooling guidelines. For cured products you can take a lot longer to cool down without growth


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