James can confirm that one of my favorite activities is looking up ingredients and nutritional content of different foods. So when we sent our beef jerky to the lab for tests, I was delighted. The health department encourages food companies to get lab tests, but I didn’t need much persuading. I wanted to know exactly what was in our jerky.
We ordered two sets of tests. The chemical tests were necessary to create our nutrition facts. The microbiology tests checked for things like E. coli and Salmonella. We also got the aW-value (water activity value) tested to better understand the shelf-stability of the jerky.
Drop-off day at the lab felt like a big expedition. James and I had spent the previous days making final tweaks to the recipe, drying several big batches, and then packaging everything up according to lab specs. So on drop-off day, Kiddo and I packed up a big sack full of jerky and made our way over to the lab, first by train and then by foot. The lab turned out to be located in a big industrial complex, with large trucks, palettes, and loading docks. Kiddo and I walked up the loading dock. I’m pretty sure we were their first customers to arrive on foot carrying a sack of food. Thankfully, they accepted it.
After a couple of weeks of great anticipation, our results arrived. The best part were the results for the aW-value. You can see in the image below that molds, yeasts, and bacteria grow when the water activity level is above 0.7. Our aW-value is 0.46! This means that the jerky is so dry that it is highly shelf stable.
The results of the other tests were less surprising. Nutritionally, beef jerky is, well, almost entirely beef. In terms of microbiology, we’re all relieved to know that our beef jerky has no E. coli, fungus, yeast, Salmonella, Listeria, or other terrible contaminants growing in it.
I think future (non-jerky) lab tests will have more interesting results. I’m already looking forward to them.