Beef Jerky Homemade

[Toothpick]

What are your favorite recipes for the marinade?
Time and temp in the dehydrator?

I’ll be making some this weekend. Mostly all the recipes call for soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, garlic powered, maybe onion flakes, whatever kind of pepper you want, and honey if you desire. Seems easy. Just curious what ya’ll like to use in your marinades.

Also if y’all use curing salt?

 

[Claudel Xerxes]

My dad used to use a few varieties Hi Mountain Jerky Cure & Seasoning, and just followed the recommended instructions. He used it both, when he would make it in the oven, then when he started doing jerky in the smoker. I always liked it.

Last year, I tried both versions of Brad Leone's Bon Appetit recipes, and they both turned out great. In the video, he does his in a dehydrator, but I used an oven. The ingredients lists are in the video description.

 

[simon1]

I've been using this one for decades:

Marinade round steaks strips overnight in:

1 small 4 ounce bottle of Colgin hickory liquid smoke (which measures out to 5 fluid ounces...if you have the large bottle and need to measure).
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder

That's usually enough to do about a pound-and-a-half or two pounds of meat.

Turn the oven on as low as it will go. I've used a dehydrator and it works well, but the marinade drips and leaves a mess I'd rather not clean up. Line the bottom rack of the oven with foil. You can crack the oven door open with something so it will be a little cooler. Place the strips on the rack in the middle position of the oven and bake about 6 hours, then turn and bake about 6 hours more. Turn off oven and let jerky cool overnight.

I store my strips in airtight mason jars. I have some now that's been there about 2 years and it's still fine.

This reminds me I need to get a round steak, and also make some corn dodgers.

 

[Claudel Xerxes]

You can crack the oven door open with something so it will be a little cooler.

A wooden spoon or spatula works well. This is also important when making jerky in the oven because the door can trap a lot of the moisture in if it's not slightly cracked.

 

[LuckyR]

What are your favorite recipes for the marinade?
Time and temp in the dehydrator?

I’ll be making some this weekend. Mostly all the recipes call for soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, garlic powered, maybe onion flakes, whatever kind of pepper you want, and honey if you desire. Seems easy. Just curious what ya’ll like to use in your marinades.

Also if y’all use curing salt?

Excellent question (about the curing salt). My dad made what I considered the best jerky when I was a kid in the 70s in the oven (without curing salt), I ate a ton of it and I did fine. Alas I never got his self made recipe and recently I considered making some myself and try to backwards engineer his recipe. While doing research, I was convinced that using curing salt was likely the safe way to go. I got some, but never got around to making jerky, partially because I stumbled upon the People's Jerky out of LA, whose Cowboy jerky is about 75% close to my memory of my dad's.

Read up on curing salt, see what you conclude.

 

[craigq]

We like this marinade, sweet & savory black, it's a black pepper and garlic, from Homemade Beef Jerky and Smoked Meats Made Easy - https://www.jerkyholic.com/

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder

 

[Ad Astra]

I've used this, but it's controversial ...

MORTON® TENDER QUICK® - Morton Salt

www.mortonsalt.com

AA

 

[Toothpick]

Went to Kroger and picked up the ingredients I’m lacking. I got all the spices. As far as meat….Kroger sucks. They only have basic cuts for family dinner. Roasts, steaks. I found two London broils that will work. I’ll have to find a local butcher. Going to start the marinade and get them soaking overnight. IDK what recipe I’ll use yet.

 

[Toothpick]

Found some recipes in the book the dehydrator came with.

 

[Eric_75]

View attachment 1823761View attachment 1823762View attachment 1823763View attachment 1823764View attachment 1823765View attachment 1823766Found some recipes in the book the dehydrator came with.

Jason, what do you do with the Brookdale Corned Beef? Fry it up for breakfast? Make sandwiches with it? Just curious.

 

[Toothpick]

Jason, what do you do with the Brookdale Corned Beef? Fry it up for breakfast? Make sandwiches with it? Just curious.

Mostly breakfast. Fried up with some eggs. I prefer corned beef hash though.

 

[Wombat ESQ]

jerky

visit supermarkit, with time to look, in the appropriate aisle if it BLAK buy it ... not limited to bbq source teryaki soy oyster anything blak buy it all.... three aisles over promite < it's blak
veg aisle buy 2Lb a fresh garlic, spice aisle blak pepper << its blak
meat of choice

combined all in gredients in random quantities in SS bowl enough to cover your meat fully, except for the garlic thats measured out to 1.9Lb's of freshly crushed
SS bowl because this stuff will eat through glass, refrigerator for 3 days

in the town i once lived in it was 120F on the grass that year, so I just hung it on the clothes line
flys? nope they knew not to get burnt

If you want ring burner style add chile

 

[Toothpick]

Jerky is in! Regular ole flavor and Sarachia

 

[DesertIguana]

When I was young we use to have butcher slice cheap cut of beef into thing pieces, and made our own jerky by hanging season meat on Wire Coat Hander, then covering with cheese cloth and handing out in carport for a couple of day. Were we live it was hot and dry, so the jerky cured fast.

 

[Toothpick]

Expensive but really good! Way better than any store bought stuff. I had roughly 5lbs of meat and it made 1.8lbs of jerky. Which from what I gather is standard. 3:1 ratio. I think if I find a local butcher maybe the meat will be cheaper than the grocery store.

 

[Claudel Xerxes]

Looks great, Jason! When I did mine, the yield ratio was 2:1. Yours might be a higher salt content, which would have sucked more moisture out of the meat. Plus, I don't think I let my marinade overnight. Also, I used eye of round instead of top round, so that might be another variable that could alter the yield rate.

If adding the shopping and prep time it takes, plus the cost of ingredients, I don't personally know of anyone who has saved money on making jerky. The benefit, though, is being able to custom tailor the flavors, shape, size, texture, etc., as well as knowing how "clean" the ingredients are.

Just a heads up, myself, and a few others who I've talked to have had mold issues storing homemade jerky in plastic bags. When my dad would make it, we would just keep it in brown paper bags in the fridge, and try to consume it within a few days, before it dried out too much. The batch I made last year, I kept in a food storage container in my fridge. I ate it all within a few days. @simon1 's suggestion of an airtight mason jar might be promising. I've never done it myself, but getting some food grade silica packs might be something worth trying as well.

 

[Toothpick]

Ahh yes, I do want to get some of those silica packs. I’m sure this will get ate by next week. Mold and all
I have a vacuum sealer and I thought about sealing some but as fast as we eat it I don’t think it will be worth it. Just waste the vac bags.

It taste way better than the stuff in the local stores so I’m not to worried about the cost. I’m gonna try some recipes here and more from that book before I start to experiment on my own signature recipe.

 

[Claudel Xerxes]

Great to hear that the end result was worthwhile. It's making me think about doing a batch sometime in the next few weeks. Keep us posted, especially, if you find a winning recipe.

 

[simon1]

Great job, Jason! I need to start fooling around with ingredients too...the one I use came from an outdoor magazine of some sort that I clipped out. It's somewhere in a cookbook and also has a pemmican recipe...if I can find it.

 

[Sideburns]

I have a vacuum sealer and I thought about sealing some but as fast as we eat it I don’t think it will be worth it. Just waste the vac bags.

You can also get vacuum sealers that work on special bags with a valve for the sealer and close like zip-lock bags. You can open them, reclose and vacuum again. The manufacturer says you shouldn't reuse them after putting raw meat in them, but I see no reason why not if you wash the insides properly.