Scotts Jerky Cure Product review

 This weekend we will be backpacking in the land of Oklahoma's Ouchita mountains.  We are starting at McGee Creek state park.  With some preplanned I had contacted Marty Blank with Sikes Enterprises to see if he would not mind sending me some jerky cure to try.

http://www.scottsjerkycure.com/



 When the package arrived it smelled of the best smokey, jerky aroma ever.  I opened the box and it comes with three items in it.  the liquid smoke, seasoning, and speed cure.  With this smell in my house I wanted to make jerky as fast as I could.

 Now the bad side to Scotts Jerky cure is that you can only use it once and you are done.  I have used the dry cures that you mix a little of this and a little of that, then you pat it down on the meat and put in saran wrap and let it sit overnight.  With Scotts you mix everything with a half gallon of water and it makes up to 12 pounds of jerky.

 My meat selection was some 4.99 roasts that I purchased from Albertsons.  Now if I had done enough preplanning I would have bought the meat when it was on sale and just kept it in the freezer till it was time to make the jerky.  From what I have done and have been told is that you want your meat with as little fat on it as possible.  When there is fat there is chew and if the meat has alot of marbling it will turn into gum when eating it.  I found these four, three pound roast packs that were really low on the marbling of the fat.  I took them to the meat counter and asked for them to be sliced 1/4 inch thick and all the visible fat to be cut off.  Now if you have another kind of meat or way you get yours please let me know.  I am always searching for the best meat for jerky and at the lowest price.  4.99 a pound is way too high.

 Above is my brine with the half gallon of water, liquid smoke, pink speed cure, and the seasoning pack.  Notice how I am using a plastic bowl.  I don't know why but you are not supposed to use metal when doing this. Place the eightish pounds of meat in the juice and let it sit for six hours.

Once the meat had soaked for six hours I rinsed it for 10 minutes to reduce the salt in the meat.  Then I broke out the dehydrator and started putting the meat on.  At that time I realized that the meat was sliced a little thinner than I usually like.  It came out at around an eighth of an inch instead of a solid quarter inch.  The thicker the slice the slower it dries out and helps give it more of a chewy texture.  With the thickness of the meat you get that dry brittle boot strap texture.  Next time I am definitely going to pay a little more attention to how thick they slice the meat.

Tomorrow I will show the final result.  Jerky is a great road snack, backpacking treat, and emergency food.  The only thing is that for 5 dollars you get five ounces of meat.  Very expensive so to combat that price doing it yourself with an oven set on low you can make piles of jerky at a great discount.  This stuff is so simple that buying it at the store almost makes no sense.  Plus you can pepper and season it to your taste.