First tries at muscle and GB/B jerkies

[jjmoney]

First of all, a huge thank you to the folks here for sharing your knowledge and experience. This forum is a tremendous resource.

OK, so we got an OBS for Christmas and I wasted no time putting it to use. First up were some cold smoked cheeses, which were easy to do (it was about 20°F where the smoker sat on the floor at the back corner of my garage). Nothing special - 2, 3, and 4 year cheddars, a Monterey Jack, and a blue (ugh) for the missus.

I quickly realized that, as suspected, leaving the smoker on the garage floor for anything beyond a trial run was completely impractical because my whole garage immediately turned into a smokehouse. So I put together a quick and dirty power vent setup using a cheap inline fan, some galvanized ducting, flex duct, and a dryer vent. This works perfectly, although I think I will change the fan out every year or two to avoid its bearing seizing up from the smoke. Yes, the rope hanger is temporary. I used 6" flex duct to avoid condensation dripping back down inside the smoker.



So, first up was some muscle jerky. I used an eye of round roast, hi mountain cure, and a marinade based on something similar to Soy Vay sold here as Kalbi sauce. I basically used a jar of this sauce and doped it with some rooster hot sauce and soy sauce to add extra salt (the kalbi was too sweet alone).

Recovery time was not very good since the front of my garage was at about 35°F, but I managed to get the temperature up, and there was only 3 lb. of meat so it didn't overwhelm the Bradley's poor little element too badly. 4 pucks, finished in a dehydrator.

The final product is very tasty and I have no issues with it. Good smoke flavor etc. If anything, I will try a mock soy vay another time and get rid of some of the sugar. Also, the jerky board is nice, but a slicer would be better.

Nothing all that special to look at but I'm told that pictures are liked here.



Next I had to make some GB jerky after seeing the delicious looking GB products here. I used 3 lbs. of ground bison and 2 lbs. of extra lean GB. I used Kirby's guidelines (thanks Kirby) for sauce and chili flake ratios. Instead of Soy Vay I used a similar commercial teriyaki and some Kalbi, with extra salt added. Of course, I couldn't resist fiddling with the seasoning, so I added a little roasted cumin I had on hand as well as a little turmeric for its antiseptic properties.

It took forever for the Bradley to come up to 150 despite preheating and foil wrapped rocks in the bottom. Several reasons - 1. I'm in Canada and it was cold, 2. maybe not enough preheat time despite the foil wrapped rocks I placed in the botom, 3. Five pounds was just too much for the cold conditions, 4. I should have used boiling water in the bowl, and 5. the element capacity is pretty low, as has been well documented. The heat element in the Bradley has been the subject of a lot of discussion and I think it is the major limiting factor to the OBS design. But, I digress.

So it took about an hour and a half to come up to 150, no matter how much I wanted it to speed up. I did the 5 pucks starting when the cabinet showed 130 and pulled it. The heat distribution issue was very apparent, as the pieces on the backs of the racks were shriveled and the ones at the front of the unit were not. I should have rotated racks, but it was taking so long for the temperature to recover that I didn't really dare to. Popped it into the Cabela's "heavy duty" dehydrator at max until all were nice and shriveled. Nothing exciting to look at, but here goes:



Results were good, but I learned a few things.

1. Mix, mix, mix. I knew this setting out but I don't think I mixed the marinade long enough to distribute all the cumin, and maybe the same for the meat mix. The first bites I had were very cuminy tasting, and other bites are hardly cuminy at all.
2. Hot smoking in cold weather is very difficult at the low ambient temperatures here with only 500W. Big loads are worse because the evaporation of the meat carries off so much of the cabinet heat.
3. Rotation is very important, especially with smaller or more delicate items, because the back half of the Bradley is very hot. I think others here are on the right track with fan mods and extra elements.
4. There are several ways that the unit could be modded to improve heat distribution. Simple methods such as covering the back of the V vent tray with foil, adding a water pan, adding a thermal mass like a brick, rocks, or heated cast iron pan for the water bowl, all will help. A good convection fan setup should help a lot. An external fan loop pulling from the top back corner and returning to the bottom front corner could help an awful lot, and the external air piping would lend itself well to the application of extra heat to the air circulation. A larger or differently shaped internal element would be very good as well. Even one at the front and one at the back. But I digress again.

Anyway, thanks again everyone for creating such a great resource here. It is very helpful to a new smoker.

Sorry the pictures are so big, I'll post using another host next time.

[SiFumar]

You're going all in and that's great!  On the jerky, you do have to rotate front to back and top to bottom.(until you do the mods)

[KyNola]

I would be concerned why, with an air temp of 35 and no wind, it took an hour and a half to get to 150 in the tower.  If you are relying on the thermometer in the door of the Bradley, you are most likely getting false readings.  Try using something like the Mavericak ET-732 to monitor your temps.  Is it possible your in-line fan is too strong and is sucking the heat out of your Bradley in addition to the smoke?

[jjmoney]

Hi KyNola, I wondered the same things. I don't think the draft is getting induced by the ventilation since there is a good 3 to 4" gap on top of the unit. The thermometer is obviously no good and the condition of the product leads me to believe that it got a lot warmer at the back of the unit. I chalk it up to mainly 5 lbs. of ice cold meat and not quite enough preheating. I had rocks wrapped in foil in the bottom and I'm not sure that they heated up enough in the preheat time. The thermometer indicated temp shot down to 95 as soon as I put the meat in (it indicated 225 before) and then slowly climbed up. Turning the smoke generator on before advancing a puck helped as well.

Next time I would only do 3 lb of GB with more preheating. A couple days prior I had done 3 lb of muscle with far less recovery time.

[KyNola]

The back of the unit definitely gets hotter because the heating element is back there and heat is rising straight up the back wall.  5 pounds of jerky shouldn't have really had such a major impact on the heat.  I'm guessing having the door open long enough to put all the jerky in there was probably a big contributing factor coupled with not enough preheating.

Rotate your racks front to back and top to bottom.

[jjmoney]

You got it. I will rotate more diligently next time. Thanks for the advice.