So I tried my hand at making beef jerky...

[uhiforgot]

Sitting up late waiting for anime to be on, I sat and watched "Good Eats" as I frequently enjoy doing.

The subject was jerky, and I was half tempted to turn it off as I had heard nothing but horror stories about doing jerky at home from scratch (dry the jerky with the oven door open and cook everybody in the house). After hearing Alton explain the science of jerky and his alternate methods for jerky making I was inspired and decided to take on a batch of my own.

As suggested on the show (not the corresponding online recipe), I picked up a beautiful and lean London broil, and ended up having to halve the thickness before cutting it into strips as it was about 1.5" thick.

I made a brine/marinade from soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, onion powder, pepper, and liquid smoke (didn't make my own like on the show).

As per the ultimately inspiring factor of that episode, I dried the jerky with a box fan rigged with paper furnace air filters, but with vertical instead of horizontal airflow. It didn't stink up the house like I expected it to, and it finished drying in about 12 hours.

As for my first batch, the results were surprisingly good.

Texture was excellent, although I have decided that all strips will get a thicker cut next time as the thicker ones have a beautifully balanced jerky chewiness to them.

Taste starts out smoky and very traditionally jerky flavored, but slowly chimes into an EXTREMELY pepper heavy blast. I'll certainly be going without pepper in the next batch to see about future adjustments in taste. Might have accidentally doubled the pepper, but no way to be sure until later.

This will definitely be following me as a snack for the next month or so, and my girlfriend has volunteered to help finish it as she's the biggest black pepper fiend I know.

In conclusion, this is definitely a do-again thing. And if you like jerky, you should try this "cold drying" method. A lot less heat and energy intensive :D

[Civilian]

Sounds great! I have been meaning to try this one as well. How thick did you slice?

[uhiforgot]

Sounds great! I have been meaning to try this one as well. How thick did you slice?I tried to slice at around 1/4" but ended up with lots of 3/16" cuts and a few 1/8" cuts. Next round is going to be probably a strong 3/16" or full 1/4" with a 15 hour dry time. The strips lose A LOT of size in the drying process, and a whole lotta mass!!! Surprisingly I'll be able to use the same air filters too! :D

I'll take some pictures of the rig when I get home and post the recipe too.

[Chucula]

ah thats great. Now I want to try :D

Thanks for the story, I'll be looking forward to the rest of this thread.

[butch]

half frozen meat and razer sharp kitchen knife with a longish slice
i always cut my super thin like 1/8 or so and do it in a dehydrator

good stuff
i do a Smokey brown suger soy soaking over night before making it up

[Capt. Carl]

I eat beef jerky every day of the week for lunch. I use a dehydrator however because it is easier and saves money in the long run.

My recipe includes Garam Masala as a main ingredient. It is an Indian mixture of spices. It makes fantastic jerky. I know a lot of recipes even reccomend curry powder but I find the Garam provides a much better complement to the beef. Everyone loves it! I usually throw in cumin, thyme, oregano if I have it, onion, garlic, cayanne, soy sauce, salt. This week I am eating a "quicky" batch I made with just the garam masala, cumin, thyme, soy sauce and sea salt. It turned out awesome and only took about a half a minute to get the marinade whipped up.

[Medic]

wait so is this easy? I love beef jerky and its great for bodybuilding which im involved in and i'd like to make my own :)

[vampyrewolf]

I've been making my own jerky for years...

american harvest dehydrator, 5 trays... can toss just over 1lbs on each tray.

inside round or eye of round roast, simply because I can take off the fat pad and have a pretty lean batch.
slice 1/8" thick, toss in the fridge in a cure/dry rub for at least 12hrs (usually 24hrs), and then 6-8hrs in the machine depending on how wet it was to start.

You'll lose about 40-50% weight drying it. I started with marinades and moved to dry rubs for the couple hours shorter drying time.

[bigkahunasix]

Instead of dropping the pepper try using the same quantity of white pepper (ground fresh if you have a mill), peppery without going overboard. I use it in most of my marinades.

BK6

[uhiforgot]

wait so is this easy? I love beef jerky and its great for bodybuilding which im involved in and i'd like to make my own :)It seemed easy enough. I thought it'd be a big mess, but actually was pretty clean work. The worst part is the waiting, and even that ain't all that bad. It's just a lot of "wait an hour, do 30 minutes of work, wait 6 hours, do 30 minutes of work, wait 12 hours..." ;)
Instead of dropping the pepper try using the same quantity of white pepper (ground fresh if you have a mill), peppery without going overboard. I use it in most of my marinades.

BK6I'll give that a shot too. Seems with all the new ideas floating around I'm going to have to do a multi-flavor batch (1lb. brown sugar soy a la butch, 1lb. "holy moly what the heck is this??" a la Capt. Carl, and 1lb. White pepper a la BK6) :D :cool:

Butch was right about having the meat half frozen, that takes about an hour or 2 in the freezer, and makes cutting precisely a lot easier.

For those of you using dehydrators, I salute you. But I'm a cheap bastard and also wanted to try dehydrating without heat (which almost all dehydrators do). So here's the breakdown:

Box fan I never thought I'd find since summer is over:
$12
Paper fiber furnace air filters:
$8 for a 3 pack
2.5lb London broil:
$9
Not failing miserably the first time making jerky:
Priceless :cool: :D

Add duct tape and nifty timer/probe thermometer from last thanksgiving. Nifty probe thermometer feature not necessary as it's not affected by wind chill.
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/8420/dsc04402nb3.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9519/dsc04403wj6.jpg
And the final product: A 2.5lb London broil reduced sufficiently to fit into a 1 quart Nalgene bottle :cool:
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8194/dsc04410su3.jpg

[Lostification]

omfg that looks good... I SOOO love jerky.

My mom doesn't like me eating jerky for some reason. She thinks it's unhealthy. So she buys me Doritos instead.... :(

[malice4you]

this is really making me want to try this...i love the stuff too, but a few ounces worth of it is so expensive it's not worth it. You might get me to try this on my own....

...even though my cooking skills include screwing up jello once when I was young....

[vampyrewolf]

If you want easy flavours, see if you can find Knorr 30min marinades. Standard salad dressing sized bottle does a 5lbs roast. 12hrs in fridge to let it soak in, wipe off excess marinade so it's not dripping wet when you start drying.
Any oil-based salad dressing works (ie italian, greek, thai... not thousand island). If the marinade or rub works for something on the bbq, it'll likely work for jerky.

Lostification: most ppl think of jerky and they think of the salty, loaded in MSG poor excuse for dried meat pre-packaged waste of money. Just takes a batch of fresh "just out this morning" with a dry rub to turn em around. I make the both the cajun and garlic & black pepper at least once a month. 1/8"x3/4"x4" slices, with the right amount of seasoning (use too much and it gets all over your fingers).
The secret to keeping it good longer is to remove as much excess fat as possible. Use a lean cut to start with (which is why I use inside round, outside round and eye of round steaks & roasts), and it'll keep for 6 weeks [max] in a plastic bag. I can make a 5lbs roast disappear in a couple days though. It's cured with a maple cure rather than salt and chemicals.

malice4you: My usual cost ends up being $4-5/lbs by the time I have good meat, cure & dry rub. When a pre-packaged 85grams (mcsweeny's for example) sets you back $5, they're charging $25+/lbs... so you save $20/lbs doing it yourself. Makes the price of the dehydrator pay for itself after the first few loads.
As far as cooking skills and ruining jello, I don't even bother making jello or pudding... I can cook just about anything you want, but the extent of my dessert skills involve my mocha brownies.

[butch]

this is the start that i started moding with a few things but here you go
http://www.recipesource.com/munchies/snacks/jerky/hawaiian-jerky1.html
i got the dehydrator when my bro in law moved and it was deamed not used (woohoo for me)

[The Mastiff]

I use 2 bottles of soy, 1 small liquid smoke, and one table spoon worchester. It's great for beef and venison. I typically use london broil and spoil myself. I also make home made spicy pickles that will make you pucker up, then you can't stop eating them. Old Johnson county recipe. Not reccomended for people with hypertension.Joe

[uhiforgot]

It's gonna take a while for me to try all the recipes that look good, and some time after that I'll see about formulating my own. Thanks for all the great recipes and links!

Tonight I tried rehydrating a couple ounces of jerky cut in small pieces with boiling water. My understanding of jerky is that it's not just a tasty snack, but can also be used as an ingredients in soups, stews, sauces, etc. as it's heavily seasoned and can create its own broth. Unfortunately the broth was dumped just so I could test the tenderness and work my way to developing a good soup to take backpacking. Thin strips definitely get the nod here for tenderness. Next will be experimenting with dried onions and other dried stuff.
I use 2 bottles of soy, 1 small liquid smoke, and one table spoon worchester. Roughly what does two bottles of soy translate to? (I buy soy sauce by the gallon.)

[The Mastiff]

The Soy bottles are around 20 ounces ( guessing, I only have the little bottles with me and they're 10 oz. The liquid smoke is 5 oz. ) This is for at least 4-5 lbs of meat. soak/marinade time is only around 20 minutes. Soy is very salty. Be carefull with liquid smoke. Some are allergic to it. I hate the smell on my hands. It won't wash off. Don't use too much worchester. 1 tble sp is plenty.

I don't use teryaki sauce because it is sweeter. Joe