Anyone here make their own jerky?

Cafe Society
1

I foresee a small batch of homemade beef jerky this week, so let’s talk about all things Dried Meat, shall we?

Per Alton Brown I always use flank steak. You?

My preference is for very sweet and a bit hot, but zero black pepper, only red. I mix honey & brown sugar, chili flakes & garlic (sometimes powder, sometimes very finely minced fresh) soy sauce, and … I dunno, whatever else looks interesting. Worcestershire sauce likely splashes its way in. I never follow exact recipes so things rarely come out exactly the same way twice in a row.

Thinly slice, long marinade time, low’n’slow oven at the absolute lowest setting available. Yadda-yadda.

Anyone have experience with non-cow critters for their jerky? Tip, tricks, entertaining disaster stories?

2

I’m thinking I used a cut of sirloin. We had some steak that had been frozen for awhile (after landing in the discounted area at Kroger) and we had a new air fryer/dehydrator/whatever. The guillotine demands its victims, of course…let’s pull that out and jerkify it.

Mrs. L liked it quite a bit, which was surprising because she’s not a jerky aficionado but she really liked the chewability I achieved. I thought it was good but not exemplary.

Like you, I’m not chained to a recipe but I like to have an idea of proportions. I think I used this…

I also came to the conclusion that it’s expensive. If you buy 16 oz of beef, you end up with about 8-10 oz of jerky. Economy isn’t the reason to do it, unless you have special access to low cost meat.

I’m interested to see what others do with non-beef meats.

3

I found flank steak needed more trimming than I wanted to bother with (I don’t like visible fat in jerky), so I switched to cheaper, leaner round steak.

4

I made a batch of venison jerky once, several years ago. It turned out pretty well. I don’t remember exactly what marinade I used but I think it was soy sauce, brown sugar and pepper-based. In a bullet-style smoker I hung thin strips down from the grate using kebob skewers to hold the meat, managed to get the temp down to under 200 degrees and let it dry out for maybe 10 hours.

5

I made a sort of impromptu batch a couple of weeks ago. Wal-Mart had substituted 3 lbs of beef milanesa (very thinly sliced beef cutlets) for beef picada (small chunks of meat- great for tacos!). Not knowing how we were going to go through the milanesa (you can only eat so many breaded and fried beef cutlets), the little light flickered on in my head.

“This meat’s really lean. It’s also really thin. It would probably make good jerky.”

Then a second or two later… “why not make jerky?”

So I ended up using the Alton Brown jerky marinade minus the liquid smoke, and using my pellet smoker to smoke it up and dry it out. Worked beautifully. Tastes great!

If you have a pellet smoker/pellet grill, I highly recommend doing jerky- the better temp control vs. a stick burner or bullet smoker lets you dry it out easier, and the less intense smoke is actually an advantage in this case (unlike if you’re smoking brisket).

6

I’ve done beef, as well as tilapia jerky, using a dehydrator.

For beef, I normally use london broil, because it’s normally a cheaper cut. Flank and sirloin were normally 6.99/lb or more prior to supply chain issues, while london broil would be 4.99 or so, sometimes on sale for less. It is chewier, and less ‘beefy’ for me, but it gets the job done and doesn’t require a ton of trimming. I’d get it about 2/3 frozen, then slice thin on the bias before the marinade.

I have two main marinades, one is a mix of soy sauce, a hit of liquid smoke, dark brown sugar, garlic, and red pepper flake [ for the sweet spicy and smoky taste ]. My second is my homemade salsa which is nothing but jalapenos, onions, lime, salt, with a small tomato for extra fluid and an extra habanero for some extra heat, although if you’re in a hurry 505 brand Roasted Green Chiles plus a bit of extra lime works well.

Either way, I get a jerky I’m happy with, but yeah, I figure by mass I’m sitting around 1/3 to 1/2 “loss”, which is honestly just water. Still much cheaper than any equivalent all beef jerky in the store. So it’s certainly a special occasion when I make a batch. I tend to keep it in a paper bag in the pantry, which allows it to loose a little bit of the moisture as time goes on, rather than a plastic bag that might get some condensation. And it never lasts long enough for me to worry about spoilage. :slight_smile:

As for Tilapia, I was trying it because fish is muuuuuch cheaper than beef, and oftimes healthier, and figured with a strong marinade, it shouldn’t be too bad. And the answer was, it wasn’t. But dehydrating certainly concentrated the fishiness, to the point that even a 48 hour soak wasn’t giving me the flavor I wanted. And it tended to dry super hard and chewy, more so than I was happy with. So I chocked it up to not being worth the time and money. I have considered doing it again with salmon, but at price for a decent fillet, figure I might as well make beef.

7

We made a lovely batch a few weeks ago, giving the new dehydrator a try out. We cheated horribly - got 3 pounds of quarter inch thick sliced deli roast beef, marinated it for about 4 hours and laid it out and turned it on. Came out beautifully. Saved all the time spent slicing, the slices were nicely uniform. We are now working on a new marinade - so far, little bit of soy sauce, black pepper, mirin, garlic granules. No smoke, never liked the oversmokey flavor of it. Don’t want sugar in it either, diabetic =)

8

I made some a few weeks ago. Thinly sliced top round, marinated overnight then smoked in my charcoal smoker at 175F for about 6 hours.

9

Getting the deli to do the slicing work is a stroke of genius!

The fish jerky sounds like it might have made good dog/cat treats …

Speaking of, the pet store sells cat treats that are basically chicken jerky strips. Has anyone tried making those at home, either for themselves or for Fluffy?

10

I started wondering…so what’s the deal with using salt to preserve meat? Would that
result in less “loss” or is it similar?

This says

11

@lobotomyboy63 - The salt does two things, one, it aids in preservation (Salt creates an unhappy environment for most microbial life) and two, it adds flavor. If I were going with a hot, fast, cooking method like grilling, yeah, it would retain more moisture as well (which is why I always brine chicken if I’m cooking the boneless skinless variety). In a dehydrator, no, it doesn’t appreciably change the fluid loss.

Again, the whole point of jerky is to remove the moisture, which aids in preservation, and increases the ‘meatiness’ of the flavor. 50% loss is the norm for me, but it depends a lot on how thick you cut the meat, the cut of beef, leanness of the meat, etc. Personally the thing I try to be careful about is to maximize the air flow while minimizing the heat. If you use the meat setting on most dehydrators, you’re cooking more than drying the meat. So I go with the minimal heat, but a long, long drying time. Which is make sure there is a substantial salt component to the marinade, just to reduce any spoilage risk.

12

I’ve never tried to make jerky. Can you do it in an oven, or do you need a special set-up? I would be worried about nastiness growing on the meat…

13

I’ve mostly used the oven set at the lowest temperature (~170°F) and the oven door cracked open. Probably not good in the heat of the summer.

14

I found this website which has loads of recipes. I have made the Rig Hand Jerky from there but it is pretty spicy (it is a slow burn and not super hot but your moth will tingle for a bit).

I have wanted to try flank steak but so far my stores seem to be perpetually out of it and when I did see it once it cost $20 for 1.5 pounds which is nuts.

In general use extremely lean meat to make jerky. Fat goes bad/rancid in time. A little bit here and there is ok but you want to get rid of all the fat you can. Silver skin too.

Top round works well. Cheap too. That said I have gotten some very different results…butchers here seem to be weird about what they are calling that.

Getting a consistent cut is hard for me. I have done it by hand and used a mandolin once. Both worked ok but I need to improve my game there.

Freeze the meat (assuming it is fresh and not already completely frozen) for 2.5 - 3 hours. This firms up the meat really well and allows for better cutting than when it is warm and smushy.

Personally I like my jerky a bit moist and chewy and not hard sawdust. I have been surprised at how fast it can go from one to the other. I think, “30 more minutes” and then poof…hard jerky (still tasty).

15

You can do it in an oven if it can go low enough (like 175 or lower). A dehydrator is best though and there are loads out there to choose from at all sorts of price points (and they can be used for lots of stuff besides jerky).

As for nastiness on the meat remember that jerky was invented as a means to preserve meat from before there was refrigeration. You are lowering the moisture content a lot (which nastiness likes) and it tends to be very salty (which nastiness does not like). The result is a preserved meat which was invented to be safe to eat after long periods with no refrigeration.

To be sure, you still need to be mindful of food safety when making and storing this but it is not very dangerous as these things go. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to make without any special fuss. I make it using my washed hands, Ziploc bags and stored in Tupperware containers. No problems yet but I am no expert so don’t sue me.

16

I haven’t made jerky, but I have made biltong. It’s vinegar-cured first before drying, coriander seed is a large flavour component, and it is never smoked. The best beef cut for it is fillet. I’ve also made ostrich and springbok biltong.

I’ve got plans for tuna biltong as well, as I’ve bought some before that I really liked.

17

Well, I’m not going to buy another large gadget just because I might want to get around to trying to make jerky sometime. But my oven seems to go down to 170F, with or without convection. So that might work.

I only “can” things that are low-risk, like jelly and maple syrup. (I buy a gallon from time to time, and “can” it into several smaller containers, so I don’t need to keep a full gallon in the fridge. If it’s sealed when it’s boiling hot, it doesn’t mold and keeps kinda indefinitely on the shelf. But if you mess up and it molds, no one dies.)

I guess I should research how risky jerky is, because it could be fun to try. But I’m not an enormous jerky fan. I’d probably just do it once or twice for kicks.

On the other hand, I have liked some jerky, but in general, my problem with it is that I don’t like “spicy”, and it can be hard to buy without added heat. If I made my own it would be easy to only include stuff I like.

18

Right, our multifunction machine has a setting for 72 hours of time. I suppose if you were drying something incredibly juicy, like fresh pineapple, you’d need that.

So essentially if you salt it to cure it, that may take weeks. If you marinate in a salty enough brine, then apply some heat, it’s faster. The end products are similar in that they’re safe to store at room temps. But you lose a similar amount of water.

Mrs. L says her dad used to make it in winter by marinating it, then hanging it in a closet outdoors (she grew up in South Texas, so winter was more like refrigerator temps than freezer temps).

19

I’ve been making jerky at home for years!

I used to use inside round roasts, I’d freeze it for an hour or so, so it got “firm”. Then I’d thinly slice the beef and add the jerky seasoning. I then put the meat on cooling racks on top of cookie sheets and then use my oven (with convection ON).

It worked great, but was a ton of work. The slicing the beef would take a couple of hours (I’d need to re-freeze the meat to get it firm again).

I have since started using ground beef and a “jerky cannon” (basically a caulking gun with a 1" flat nozzle). This is a total game changer for me! I buy 6lbs of lean ground beef, add the jerky seasoning, load the “cannon” and start laying strips onto my cooling racks (on top of cookie sheets) then into the oven at 170 and convection on. I leave it in for about 1:45-2:00 and it’s perfect!

I just use jerky seasoning bought at my local outdoors store.

MtM

20

I’ve been making jerky for decades. I have a home-built smoker in my back yard.

In recent years I’ve used eye of round. It’s lean, tender, and uniform. Both Costco and Smart & Final carry it. I use a slicer to cut the meat to about 3/16 inch thickness, with the grain of course. Most pieces are about 9 or 10 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide.

I make a marinade of salt, sugar, water, soy sauce, red wine, onion, garlic, black pepper, Tabasco sauce, and juniper berries. I leave the meat in the marinade for maybe 12 hours.

For smoking fuel I use mostly cherry wood with some star anise added. I set the smoker to 130 F and leave the meat in there for at least 24 hours. I like my jerky to be really dry. I typically start with, say, 28 pounds of unprocessed meat and end up with between 9 and 10 pounds of jerky.

I give most of the jerky as gifts. I like jerky, but there’s no way I’m going to eat 10 pounds of it by myself.