Looking for Morton'sTender quick

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Hi Webb,

I knew that Soy was mostly salt, however some recipes call for soya and salt and sugar. I am not using sugar or TQ or salt.

We'll see ! I've added a lot of Cayenne and Guyanese pepper sauce which is the best hot pepper sauce ever. If anybody wants to try it I will send you a bottle. It's the best hot sauce I've tried so far and I have tried as many as I've been able to.

Rocky, Matt, Kevin, Jim, Chris, Billy etc... I appreciate you guys taking the time to answer my questions...

As always, your Webb of information is appreciated. Hope to meet you some day.

Had a great conversation with Weber Dave on the Weber 1-800 line. He knows his stuff and all you guys too.

Gonna take some pics of this next cook and post them !

Cheers !

Marc
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marc Currie:
[qb]
I knew that Soy was mostly salt, however some recipes call for soya and salt and sugar. I am not using sugar or TQ or salt.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've already put the (soy) bottle up, but I believe that the label will show a fairly hefty dose of sugar in each tablespoon as well.

Before you pour it over the meat, just stick your finger (errr...I mean a spoon, of course!) in your marinade and taste it. If you think it should be a little sweeter, add a little more sugar!

If I were using Chinese "Thin" soy sauce, I would probably add some sugar or honey or molasses. If I were using Chinese "Dark" soy sauce, it probably doesn't need it. Same with Japanese soy sauce (made with a higher proportion of wheat) which tends to be sweeter.

If you are off by a tablespoon or two of honey, in either direction, it's not going to be a make or break deal. I agree with Kevin that the salt will drive the flavor and, with a cup of soy sauce, you have nothing to worry about in that department!
 
Hi Marc!

I have made over 100 jerky recipes and keep coming back to my original recipe. That recipe includes TQ and has been a very good recipe for me. All those recipes I have tried lacked one thing...lots of salt. I found most of those recipes to be VERY bland.

Here is the sure fire test for salt. After mixing your marinade, place an egg in it. If the egg floats, you have enough salt. This I mentioned at my web site. I continue to use TQ because that is what I have used and the recipe is perfect for me and apparently those I sell it to. Perhaps I am guilty of using TQ as an expensive salt substitute, so be it..it really is not that expensive here. Again, the biggest reason is the non-refrigeration that I insist on.

As in all things Q, the only sure fire way to measure results is to do side by side tastings. When I first started making jerky I would have up to 5 different recipes going at one time. To this day I ALWAYS make 2 batches of jerky..one with the regular recipe and the other with some variation, usually a hot version.

Hope this helps out some! Truth be known, in all those recipes I have tried, I only had to throw one of them away. So, no matter what you come up with, it will be edible, perhaps not the best, but at least edible.

With all this discussion, I am VERY interested in your results and your thoughts on this process.

Best of luck to you!
 
Kevin:

What you do makes perfect sense. There is nothing at all wrong with using a sodium nitrate cure in jerky and, in some cases, it would be a sensible precaution.

This thread started out with several people saying that Tender Quick wasn't readily available when they needed it, so I was just trying to point out the conditions under which a sodium nitrite cure wouldn't be necessary.

What might be very useful is a conversion chart for the three most popular cures so that it's easy to substitute back and forth.

For example here are the rough recipes for:

Prague Powder #1 (InstaCure #1):

1 TBS sodium nitrite
15 TBS salt

Prague Powder #2:

1 TBS sodium nitrite
2 tsp sodium nitrate
14.3 TBS salt

Morton Tender Quick cure:

Some tiny percentage sodium nitrite
Some tiny percentage sodium nitrate
Some huge percentage salt
Some percentage sugar

Is there any info on the bag that would give these percentages? Their website doesn't give the information, but if you could figure it out, then someone who doesn't need the sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate cures (or who has Prague Powder) could easily duplicate the salt and sugar content of your recipe.

The only hint I can come up with is that most of Morton's suggested sausage recipes call for 5 tsp of Tender Quick for 5 pounds of meat where generally 1 tsp of Prague Powder is used for 5 pounds of meat. So from that I'm guessing that to substitute for Tender Quick, it would be somthing like 1 TBS of prague powder #2 plus 5 TBS of some additional sugar/salt combo.

The other ingredients in Tender Quick are anti-caking agents and other stuff in miniscule quantities that has no impact from a nutritional for flavor standpoint.
 
Hi Webb!

Couldn't agree with you more! I wish there was a substitute chart.....I too often think that if the product is sold here, certainly it is sold everywhere! LOL

I appreciate the info you have given during this thread..VERY informative for all. I may have to start experimenting all over again to get the conversion factor correct. I will go back and do the egg test for a staring point and see what happens. I haven't made jerky in a while so this will be a good time to try some things.

Thanks again for all the info!
 
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