Pretty safe I’d wager, as it’s significantly dried, usually salted heavily (generally through soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and/or just straight salt), and often is cooked and/or smoked as part of the drying process. There’s at least one, and usually multiple preservation techniques going on with jerky at the same time.
This sounds amazing. I want to try this! I actually have a big bag of star anise I bought at an Indian grocery and haven’t known what to do with.
While I think of it more as a gag than a practical rig, you could always do what Alton Brown did…
Basically use some food grade sheeting a few furnace filters, a box fan and some bungie cords to make a DIY dehydrator. This clip is from doing fruit, but he did the same thing for pencil sized stips of beef jerky in a different episode. Plus this will dry the the food at room temperature, so you don’t have a hotish oven on for hours during the summer!
Interesting! I need to try this.
Been awhile. But it is the perfect snack - nutritious, portable and addictive.
Not tried flank, which would work great. Usually by eye of round or whatever cut is cheapest. Not a fan of very sweet marinades.
From a bottle: Jamaican jerk sauce, teriyaki sauce (add five spice), Korean chili sauce and Thai curry paste all work great and easily replicate those flavours. Some of the posted marinades look good. I’ll have to try the South African version sometime.
My product is good but not the same texture as store bought - probably sliced too thick. Are stores really willing to slice raw meat? I guess I know a few that might. That is a great idea.
Many of the store bought ones are made of formed meat (ground into a paste and formed) or use various meat tenderizers. You can buy meat tenderizers, or use a meat tenderizer tool that breaks up the muscle tissues (whether mallet or perforator), as well as leave the jerky more moist which will be closer to store bought. I’d rather have tougher, drier jerky than the stuff at the store which is . . . not to my taste. As for in store slicing, before COVID, they were only willing when they were dead slow (like 7 pm), but it’ll probably depend on the store and butcher. I’ve been experimenting with doing jerky using the shaved beef they sell at Kroger for Philly style cheese steaks. It’s not the highest quality, and a bit thinner than I like, but it’s 5.99/lb, which is less than hamburger meat these days.
I like store bought too. But homemade has more interesting flavours.
In the covid age, I’ve been buying all my meat frozen, from a local “meat share” producer. If I have a solidly frozen block-o-meat, what’s the best way to slice it thin? Partially defrost it? Defrost it all the way? Defrost and then partially re-freeze?
Partially defrost.
I just made made mine (the inspiration for my O.P.) and that’s precisely what I did. Pulled the frozen solid hunk o’ flank out this morning, made a thick marinade (soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, honey, red pepper flakes, and sriracha) and a couple hours later took a sharp knife to the semi-thawed meat.
It’s sitting in its bath right now, and will go into a low oven tomorrow morning.
I should be eating jerky by this time, tomorrow night.