Jerky can be made with or without a curing agent. The recipe below shows the use of curing agent as optional. The point is you must keep the jerky refrigerated if you do not use a curing agent, to avoid mold formation and unwanted bacteria that will happen if you store it without refrigeration. With refrigeration the jerky, kept in well sealed packs, will remain fresh for a few weeks, and you are most likely to eat all of it within a week or two.
You can decide to use Prague Powder #1 as a curing agent if you want to travel, with your jerky well sealed (vacuum sealing is best but Ziploc® freezer bags will work too) but not refrigerated. Curing agents like Prague Powder #1 can be purchased inexpensively via online sites like Amazon®. Using the combined weight of the marinade and the meat, use 1/2 teaspoon of Prague Powder #1 per pound of total weight (in this recipe assume 3 pounds of total weight, so use 1 1/2 teaspoons of Prague Powder #1 added as a marinade ingredient). You can then cure the sliced meat in the marinade for 24 hours as part of the marinating process, refrigerated and vacuum sealed or sealed [air expelled] in a one gallon Ziploc® freezer bag.
Now let's consider how to get mild, medium or intense jerky flavor. Put simply, it is a matter of how much marinade you retain on the surface of the meat before dehydrating. If you want mild yet yummy tasting jerky, scrape excess marinade from the meat slices on both sides after marinating, lightly with a table knife, on a wood cutting board. Or, and this is very important, don't scrape off any excess marinade, or else scrape marinade from only one side of the meat instead of both sides. Why? Answer: The amount of marinade that dries onto the surface of the meat when it is dehydrating determines the intensity of the flavor and the heat.
The remaining tasks after marinating the meat are to impale the slices of marinated meat with a few shish kabob spears, hang the slices so they slip through the rungs of the top oven rack, and then drying/dehydrating the meat in a 180 degrees F oven to turn it into jerky.
Cured vacuum sealed jerky will remain safe for a least a month, not refrigerated, but once the bag is opened the jerky should be eaten within a week. This is similar in utility to the commercial brands of jerky you find in convenience stores, bagged, with antioxidants, but not vacuum sealed and not refrigerated.
Ingredients: (makes 18 or more strips or 36 or more smaller pieces of cut jerky)
2 lbs. of pork loin (cut cross grain into 1/4" thick slices)
1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup of teriyaki sauce
1/4 cup of light soy sauce
1 tablespoon of Wrights® liquid smoke
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons of onion powder
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
2 teaspoons of black pepper
1 tablespoon of sea salt
1⁄4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of honey
2 teaspoons of maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons of Prague Powder #1 (optional)
Directions:
Trim all visible surface fat from the piece of pork loin, discard the fat, and place the loin in the freezer for an hour or two to partially freeze it.
While the meat is in the freezer, combine all of the marinade ingredients in a three quart bowl. Mix well.
Remove the meat from the freezer and slice it into 1/4" thick discs, perpendicular to the grain. Cutting the meat perpendicular to the grain will make it easier to chew later than typical jerky that is cut along the grain. Cut away and discard any residual areas of fat.
Add the sliced meat to the marinade in the bowl a few slices at a time and mix well by hand (but if you used a curing agent in the marinade, then wear latex or nitrile gloves to keep it away from your skin). Note that the sodium nitrite in the curing agent, if you use it, can be absorbed through your skin, and you don't want that to happen as it is poisonous if too much is absorbed.
Transfer the meat and the marinade to a 10" by 16" vacuum seal bag (or to a one gallon size Ziploc® freezer bag).
Vacuum seal the marinating meat (or expel the air if you used a Ziploc® freezer bag and then seal it). Spread the meat out inside the bag and make it mostly flat to avoid uneven areas of thickness.
Marinate the meat for 24 hours in the refrigerator, laying the bag flat on a shelf, and turning the bag over every four to six hours. It is useful to squeeze and bend the bag a few times to guarantee that all slices of meat are evenly coated with the marinade, which won't happen if two pieces of meat are tight together before being well coated with marinade. This is especially important if you are using a curing agent, which you want to penetrate all of the meat pieces evenly.
Remove the meat from the refrigerator and (maybe, if you want mild jerky) scrape excess marinade from it one piece at a time on a wood cutting board with a table knife. I prefer to let either half or all of the marinade remain on the meat surface as that yields the best, intense flavors after dehydrating the meat.
Dry/dehydrate the meat to create jerky in a 180 degrees F convection oven (if you have one), with the discs hanging vertically from bamboo or steel shish kabob spears, not touching each other, on a high oven shelf, over an aluminum foil covered baking sheet on the low shelf that will catch any drippings from the meat. Note that you do not have to have a convection oven but the drying time will be considerably longer in a conventional oven, likely closer to 6 hours instead of about 4 hours.
Hints: The discs/strips are each impaled 1/2" to 3/4" from one end and put on the spears with an inch of separation from each other. Once a full spear of meat slices is slipped through the rungs of the top oven shelf, a second spear (optional) may be used to impale the discs underneath the shelf, 1/2" or more as necessary from the bottom edge of each disc/strip of meat. That will keep the pieces of meat from touching each other as they dry and become jerky. Repeat this step until all of the marinated meat slices have been put on shish kabob spears and hung from the top oven shelf (in rows).
Note: You should crack a conventional oven door open about one inch to help eliminate moisture from the oven/drying meat. Use a wood utensil or something similar to keep the oven door propped slightly open. Convection ovens may not continue to heat if you partially open the oven door. In that instance the oven will typically exhaust the moisture via an internal exhaust fan with the oven door kept closed.
The jerky will probably be done in 4 hours using a convection oven, but allow as much time as needed, noting the jerky is finished when it bends and cracks at the surface, but does not break in half. Part of the time requirement is determined by how much marinade you left on the surface of the meat before dehydrating. Check the jerky after 3 hours of drying and every 30 minutes after that, if necessary, until it is finished. Simply hold one piece and bend it to see if it cracks at the surface. Don't be surprised if you cheat and cut off a small piece and taste it during the drying. It is delicious.
Once the dehydrating/drying is done, turn off the oven, then slide out the top shelf for easy access, and remove the (optional) bottom shish kabob spears from the rows of jerky.
Remove the top shish kabob spears holding the jerky from the oven, slide the jerky from the spears, and place the pieces of jerky next to each other, flat, on a large wood cutting board to cool.
Discard the aluminum foil and, if needed, wash the baking sheet. Also, wipe/clean the rung surfaces of the top oven rack to remove any marinade residue.
Cool the jerky to room temperature, then if you want you can cut each piece in two crossways, then store snack size amounts in three, quart size Ziploc® freezer bags or vacuum seal bags, seal them and refrigerate them until the jerky is used. If you used a curing agent and plan to travel with the jerky not refrigerated then do not cut the pieces in half before storing them.
If you used a curing agent then limit your daily portion of jerky to one ounce, as that will guarantee you will not consume too much sodium nitrite. If you didn't use a curing agent you can eat as much as you want.
Eat the jerky within two weeks unless you used a curing agent and want to keep it for a longer period of time. I bet the first bag of it will be gone the day you make it!
Enjoy!