Water or no water for real low temps?


 
P

Paul K

TVWBB Guru
I've been reading the excellent threads regarding jerky; (Stogie and Randyq thank you). Most indicate to use a dry water pan. When making jerky, the idea is to keep the temps low - 160 to 180, wouldn't water in the pan help? I plan on making jerky in my WSM this weekend for the 1st time and would like input on this issue. Also with regards to smoke, do most agree that about 3 hours of smoke (not total time in WSM, just time that wood chunks are on the coals) is sufficient? I would assume the smoke permeates the thin strips quicker. Thanks!
Paul
 
As luck would have it, my order of apple, cherry and birch just came in. Now I'll have something other than oak to smoke with
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. Also, I think I'm going to try sand in the pan. On another thread, Stogie brought up a good and what should have been an obvious point to me, that jerky needs to be dried!! I don't know why I didn't think of the sand earlier
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The purpose of jerky is to dry the meat. adding water to the environment defeats that purpose. The key is to use less charcaol. I've only done jerky one time, but was amazed at how easy it was. I maintained about a 160-170 in the dome of my cooker, a handfull of charcoal in the cooker. Took about 5 hours to get two london broils dryed out. Since you are exposing this to low temp cooks, make sure you use a cure (tenderquick, prague powder).

Have fun. I plan on doing this again later in the fall with a bunch.
 
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