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i started at 10:30, dressed in an apron to prevent splatter from getting on my clothes (dressed in dark clothes so if i did get splattered it wouldn't show). laying out the marinated jerky onto the paper napkins took only half an hour. i ended up with 16 layers of raw jerky, with 2 more additional layers of little leftover bits. the expanded DIY dehydrator had 5 racks (sandwiched between 6 air filters). even though i layered densely, i still ended up completely filling the 5th and last rack, and had to overlap a few remaining jerky pieces. racking up took about an hour. by noontime i was finally ready for dehydration.

right away i ran into some problems. i didn't take into consideration that the higher the stacks i had in my dehydrator, the long it'd take to dry the topmost layers, since the air wouldn't be able to properly circulate through so many levels. the solution would be i'd re-arrange the stack order every few hours. then there was a second more serious problem. it rained all of yesterday and would continue to rain all of today. with so much moisture in the air, it'd be difficult to dry anything. it was also cold (low 60's), but that doesn't affect the drying time1 as much as the dew point. this was going to be a challenge.

with so much rain falling, i was basically confined to the house for most of the day. i did leave briefly in the late afternoon to get some groceries. the weather was still too wet so i took my trek, wasn't in the mood to test ride the newly suped up road bike. i went the whole way without sitting on the seat because it was wet, giving my quads a real workout. market basket changed their bike racks, removing every alternating bars so now bicycles are easier to park and lock.

with just 9 more days before my new roommate arrives and with trash pickup tomorrow morning, i took the opportunity to clean out the fridge. i tossed half a dozen things, including a jar of pickle that expired in 20052 and some old alfredo sauce that smelled like rotten milk.

i've been listening to a lot of WTF podcast with marc maron, learning the innermost thoughts of comedians. so far i've heard sandra bernhard, aubrey plaza, demetri martin, jimmy fallon, laura kightlinger, and conan o'brien.

for lunch i had some oatmeal, for dinner some tuna fish sandwich.

close to midnight with nearly 12 hours worth of dehydration time, the jerky was nowhere close to being ready. they were still soft and wet. the layer closest to the fan had the most drying, but even those pieces were soft. i'll leave the fan running overnight. my only concern is if the jerky will spoil given how long it's taking to dry them, but i'm hoping the marinade will prevent spoilage so soon. tomorrow looks to be another cold and rainy day. at this rate, the jerky won't be ready until late friday, when we're supposed to get some sunny and dry weather in the 80's.


1 i've successfully made jerky in the dead of winter, with the temperature close to freezing. humidity is definitely the limiting factor, not temperature.

2 i almost ate one of the pickles because it didn't look bad, until i saw the expiration date. i'm not sure how they could've been in my fridge for 6 years without me noticing. who knows what else is in there (i'll do a more thorough inspect some other time).