Dog3 wrote:
"Laura B." got ****ed off and typed
:


This is incorrect. Your description "dry it until it's so brittle you
can't eat it" is subjective, for one thing. You'll need a more
quantitative description than that.

Botulism requires a water activity level of 0.85 or above in order
to grow. Beef jerky is well below that level.

Properly dried beef jerky has a water activity level in the range of
0.69 - 0.7. It's more than dry enough to inhibit botulism.


So then perhaps you could be part of the solution and inform everyone
here how to tell when their homemade jerky has a water activity level
of less than .85? Until then I'll keep mine refridgerated.

Laura B.


If what you say is true, why is the jerky in the retail shops stored in
bags on racks with the regular snacks and not refrigerated?

Michael


The jerky in the retails shops is most often cured with sodium nitrate.

There is enough residual nitrate in the jerky to keep on killing
bacteria for a while.

There may be other factos, such as the beef jerky I sese in stores is
wrapped in a plastic sealed bag and air penetration through the plastic
is relatively slow... and there is that residual sodium nitrate.

Jim

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