My boyfriend has recently discovered beef jerky (seriously…he’s 37 and had never had any kind of jerky until a few months ago). He has something of an obsession with it. This is all fine and dandy with me (he’s using it to curb the smoking cravings as his job gets more and more stressful - it’s been over 3 years so falling off the wagon would really suck).
The problems are that commercial jerky isn’t even remotely healthy and is usually so tough that it’s nearly impossible to eat. Oh, it’s also insanely expensive.
I’d like to try making it at home. I’ve tried checking online but no one seems to agree on which cut of meat is best, how to prepare it, or what dehydration method is best.
Is using a dehydrator better/easier than using the oven?
Is there a particular kind of meat that is best for jerky?
If a dehydrator is better, is there a particular brand that is preferable?
Is there a particular recipe collection that is best for beginners?
Anything else I need to know?
Also, I love fruit leather so if you have any suggestions for making that, I’d love to hear them.
It’s best to get a special drying rack for the oven. You “bake” it at very low temps on the rack, after soaking in the brine/flavor solution for a time, in the fridge.
It is hwaaay tastier, and more tender. If you don’t need it to last for a long time, you also don;t need to add the nitrates.
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Buy the very leanest round steak. 1) It’s cheap, and 2) any visible fat will still be visible fat after it’s made, so you want to get the leanest meat you can and trim all fat. (I’ve never noticed any lesser quality between the end result when I use round steak or the more expensive flank steak, which is also more difficult to remove the fat from.) Slice very thinly - easiest to do if it’s partially frozen, and you need a very sharp knife. Marinate meat in a ziplock bag set in a pan or bowl or something in the fridge overnight or so. Then lay on racks set in sheet pans in the oven and cook/dry at 170F until done. It should be slightly flexible when done.
For marinades, a good basic one is equal parts soy sauce and Worchestershire sauce with some crushed garlic or garlic powder, chopped onion or onion powder, and, if you like it, some liquid smoke (some people hate the stuff, others like it.) Other combinations abound online; I’ve made teriyaki, lime-cilantro-tequila (yum), honey-barbecue, pretty much anything that sounds good to you.
I’ve seen recipes for ground-beef jerky; I would never make it. It sounds like a recipe for E. coli to me.
It’s REALLY easy to make. The hardest part is slicing the meat. And cleaning the pans afterwards.
Don’t buy the mixes that they sell to make your own jerky, with the nitrites, as DrDeth points out. There’s no reason to add nitrites in the first place. Dehydrated, salted meat will keep for ages with no added preservatives.
So, do I need to get specific racks for this? Do the racks need to sit a certain height off the pan? My drying racks have short feet on them and fit nicely in my cooling racks. Would that work or does the height need to be higher than the feet on a standard cooling rack? The jerky specific racks don’t seem to be particularly expensive but it would be nice to see if it’s something I really want to get into before I spend money on it.
All you need is some way to keep the beef off the actual sheet pan so it won’t get glued on. I use any old cooling or roasting racks I have around the kitchen that will fit into a pan. I used to do it right on the oven racks themselves with pans on the rack beneath them, until I realized how hard it was to clean the racks afterwards. The racks don’t need to be any particular height off the pan. You should probably rub or spray the racks with oil so you can pry the meat off more easily.
It can take many, many hours before the meat is dried out enough. Depending on your oven and how thin your meat is cut, it may take 8 hours or more. Or less.
Any lean meat will work fine, I have even used marbled meat like brisket, it just turns out greasier. You can often find good deals on round steak which works well because it is easy to slice into thin strips.
Since you are going to make the jerky without using a smoker you can buy a little bottle of liquid smoke and add a small amount to your brine. A ‘small’ amount, like a few drops up to a quarter teaspoon, any more will make it bitter.
Don’t dry it into shoe leather. With the salt, sugar and whatever in your brine it isn’t going to spoil very fast even if you leave it moist. Just keep it in the fridge and whatever you take out for a day’s lunch will be fine.
Make a few small batches at first until you decide what flavors and levels of salt/sweet you like. I would not buy jerky cures with nitrates in it unless you are planning to live off it in the wilderness for months without refrigeration.
Some of the ingredients I have used are: salt, brown sugar, pepper, maple syrup, garlic, worcestershire sauce, Yoshida’s sauce, Tiger sauce, Italian salad dressing, seasoning salt, celery salt, dry au jus mix. Not all at once or the flavor gets too ‘muddy’, pick about 4-6 different ingredients and then the next time try something else. You will find out what suits you.
This might be the reason to buy a dehydrator. My almost 60 year old stove is the complete opposite of energy efficient. I’d probably have a heart attack from looking at my electric bill if I ran my oven that long.
I appreciate all the info so far. Thanks everyone!
I meant to say cooling racks. Mine look like what you linked. The actual jerky racks I found online seem to have the racks seated much higher off the pan.
I cheat. I use hamburger grind beef and a dehydrator. Mix up the seasonings and salt, mix into the beef and dry. Comes our tasty, dry and doesn’t bust your teeth to tear off a piece. Granted, it won’t store as long as thin strips of steak, but it gets eaten long before spoilage is an issue. The jerky gun looks like a caulking gun with a ribbon nozzle attached.
Don’t waste your money on a dehydrator. You need a lot of square footage, and an oven is perfect for that. 170F is such a low temp that your oven will be cycled off most of that time.
I hate Alton Brown’s shows. He complicates everything in the name of being original or thinking out of the box. I would not want dried-out *uncooked *beef, except as a science experiment in microbes (even if they get killed off in the brine, I would never risk it). Plus, a furnace filter? The jerky gets glued to whatever it’s up against.
I’ll definitely give it a try in the oven before buying anything. It’d be really nice if I could make jerky without having to buy anything but ingredients.
I have a fear of E coli, living in the city where the deadly Jack-in-the-Box outbreak was awhile back. Unless you have a way of determining that the innards of each piece has reached 160F, then it’s a risk. You can’t rely on your oven thermostat, so you have to use a thermometer and hope for the best. I’ve cooked jerky to where the meat was still a bit pinkish on the inside after it being in the oven all day. But you’re right; it is a lot easier to chew.
I might point out that “easier to eat” homemade beef jerky might be a bad thing for the OP. If he’s really digging it to sate his oral fixation, the gnawing might be a big part of the appeal. Plus easier to eat means he might eat way more of it, which isn’t the healthiest thing in the world considering the salt content.
