Beef Jerky

I just bought 3/4 lb of beef jerk from http://www.metropolisbeefjerky.com/ and it is excellent, but at 6.50 per 1/4 lb plus $5 shipping plus my pregnancy appetite, this is getting to be an expensive habit, considering I have eaten almost the entire 3/4 lbs in 2 days.... but hey, I need the iron and protein.....
So.. does anyone have a good beef jerky recipe that can be made in the oven without special gadgetry?
Thx,
LO

Not what you are looking for but Costco sells 2lb packages of jerky for $9.99.
Believe they have Teriyaki, Regular, and Turkey Jerky.
Jamie

If this habit lasts full gestation, I would suggest looking for a dehydrator. You can find them for about $19 now. Making your own, certainly is a way to control the ingrediants.

I might also suggest you learn what is added to the jerky you are purchasing (and commercial jerky seasoning purchase). Salt Peter (Potassium Chloride) is a common preservative, not sure how that affects the FND, but would check it out with your healthcare practioner just to be safe.

Thousands of sites and receipes all over the web, it really is a personal taste thing. I have only attempted a few times, since for the trouble it is not that expensive pre-made. One bit of advice, the spices concentrate along with the protein.

Hi,

A cheap dehydrator is not a good investment. You need control over temperature, which simply doesn't happen in a $20 dehydrator unless it is a garage sale find. Food safe information on these topics can be found here:

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/dry/dehydrator.html

I don't know if you consider a smoker "fancy equipment," but I've used the method and recipe described on this website many times to great acclaim. If you don't want to use a smoker, I suppose you can just try it in the oven at 150 degrees on a wire rack or something for somewhat lesser results (no smoky flavor).
http://www.randyq.addr.com/jerky/jerky.htm

Yeah, it was a concern. They don't use Potassium Chloride nor MSG, I was VERY glad to find out.
Thanks!
LO

Cathy,

While I appreciate the link, I am not sure I appreciate the hype when it comes to drying foods. When preserving meats, the majority of the time (as is true with Jerkey), it is a preservative other than drying which is actually preserving the food; e.g., salts and sugars. You can read about it in a book called Preserving the Harvest.

You can also read about building home dehydrators, which are not much more than racks with a heat lamp; the object is to remove moisture quickly to preserve texture, not necessarily to preserve the product. Not sure how much control others have had for thousands of years before Ronco came along, but I think a cheap dehydrator, or better yet an oven left on low is quite fine for the job. The art is to get the appropriate texture and chew, you will notice some cheap brands of jerkey turn to dust or are brittle. I believe this is timing more than control, but I may be wrong....I have made brittle on too many occassions.

Peter,

I don't think I am a cheerleader of drying foods in any shape or form. I've done some but I am not very enthusiastic about it.

My bible for food preserving techniques is the USDA and research based information from land grant universities. Everything else, like Preserving the Harvest are just idea books. When I go to cook, my USDA references are next to these recipes and I defer to the USDA for timing, techniques and proportions. I have seen too many books with wrong preservation information that to find any with correct info is a rare anomaly.

Dehydrators with thermostats for regulating temperature are a must especially for drying meats. I would also want a fan. I happen to have a cheapo unregulated-heat-coil-only which I wasn't very thrilled about receiving. So I use it for herbs only.

Cathy,

I don't think of you as a cheerleader. My point is that there are several dehydrators on the market that are needlessly expensive and I don't think that is necessary for making jerky which has additional preservatives.

Peter,

Thermostat to control heat and a fan is what is needed. Build it or buy it, but that is the minimum requirements.

Cathy,

I would suggest that the folks who dry cure hams in Parma and about one hundred other cultures would suggest that all that the sole (or minimum if you prefer) requirement an environment where water evaporates (not humid, perhaps a breeze, perhaps a fire).

But, then again, they aren't selling anything on infomercials.

Peter,

The national food preservation website I referenced above has an emphasis on food safe methods of drying, freezing, canning and other related topics. They do not endorse any equipment, they offer research based (your tax dollars at work) safe methods and advise specifications for equipment.

There are many traditional methods which are food safe and many which are not. I had two gentlemen who "preserved" a large quantity of pesto by simply putting them in jars and putting a layer of oil to "seal." They were quite angry at me for advising they now had unsafe pesto which needed careful disposing. I have talked to book authors who advocated water bath processing of meats. When I politely inquired why they had not considered pressure canning. They firmly advised their family had done the same for the last 100 years without an adverse problems. Still it is not food safe.

You are free to take your advice from anywhere you chose. I simply offered a qualified resource who has no commercial interests.

One of my in-laws is asking for beef jerky for XMAS. Where is the best place (and Brands) to get great beef jerky online or in local stores?

Thank you![/i]

My favorite source of beef jerky is http://www.jerkyusa.com. Excellent smoked flavor. The hot jerky is black pepper hot, while the jalapeno has jalapeno powder dusted on, rather than heat marinated in.
-Will

I bought some great teryaki jerky a few weeks ago from a fairly new butcher and deli in Libertyville. The owner told me he smokes his own in the store. It was very fresh (made the previous day), not like shoe leather, and had great flavor. Even my non-jerky loving wife really liked it.

Tripoli
408 Peterson Rd
Libertyville, IL
847.367.7980

Best,
Al

For a local source, Metropolis Beef Jerky Companywould be a good choice. Here's something I posted on Chowhound about Metropolis last year (note they have moved since then).

Metropolis Beef Jerky Company
3572 W 95th St
(used to be at 9250 S Kedzie)
Evergreen Park IL
708-425-5149

Believe it or not, I really like the stuff from http://www.worldkitchens.net/ . I first found it at a local Dominicks but have since bought from them directly. It's very good quality and very cheap.

On a lighter note, are there any threads in this forum for favorite jerkey recipes? I'm getting ready to do my first batch, and am going to do a few differet flavors to test things out. I dislike ones that are too sweet and don't mind spicy at all, so any recipes would be awesome! Share!

Speaking of jerky recipes, here's one from Backpack Cookery by Ruth Dyar Mendenhall we've used for many years with zero problems:

1 Flank steak (about 1-1/2 lbs.)
1 tsp seasoned salt, liquid smoke OR barbecue salt
1/2 tsp EACH garlic powder, black pepper
1 tsp ACCENT (actually we never used this)
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 cup EACH Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce

Trim off all possible fat. Semi-freeze the meat, and slice it with the grain into 1/8-inch slices. Marinate overnight in a shallow glass dish, fully covered with the sauce above.

Lay strips on a rack over a cookie sheet, roast (dehydrate) in an oven set at between 125 and 140 for 8 to 12 hours, tasting occasionally until chewy as desired. Set a beer can opener at the top of the oven door so it's slightly open. This produces 1/2 lb. of jerky. Recipe can be multiplied if you have enough room in the oven. (Meat must not overlap.)

We now have a convection oven with a "dehydrate" setting that runs at 140. It's a little faster on the jerky. We think this is really good stuff. You could add a little cayenne if you think the baby would like that.

On a lighter note

I simply adore threads with three or four year gaps in them; it makes me appreciate the simultaneous currency and timelessness of the discussion, personalities, and viewpoints.

MikeLM wrote: You could add a little cayenne if you think the baby would like that.

haha, i think the baby is a few years old by now, time to start getting him ready for spicy food! Thanks for the recipe.

LO wrote:So.. does anyone have a good beef jerky recipe that can be made in the oven without special gadgetry?
Thx,
LO

This involves some gadgetry, but Alton Brown has an interesting beef jerky recipe utilizing a box fan, a bungee cord and a few paper HVAC filters (the key is to get the paper filters and not the fiberglass ones, which apparently have the potential to impart toxins). Total cost of gadgetry is somewhere in the $20 range. The setup also works as a pretty decent herb drying rig, which he did on a earlier show.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... 51,00.html

I have the original show Tivoed, and it looks like a promising method. I've also had terrible luck with cheap dehydrators in the past, as noted above, and I'm hoping to give this method a go soon.

Fringe benefit is it apparently makes the whole house smell like beef jerky for hours.

Weighing in, a little late, on the dehydrator question.... I think a cheap dehydrator is fine to start with. If you decide you like drying foods you'll want to upgrade or add on for more capacity.

I started out drying things in the oven with the door left ajar. Then I got a Nesco dehydrator. The main difference was capacity and not having to watch the drying food so closely. It's been a few years since I used it and it's now packed away in the basement, so I can't remember if it has a fan or not.

I mostly used it for tomatoes. Herbs dry just as well or better hung in bunches, if you're not in a hurry. Or if you are, spread them on a paper plate in the fridge. (Assuming you have a modern, frost-free refrigerator, it dries things out remarkably well. I bet that if you sliced the meat thinly enough, that method would work for jerky too, though it might take a few days. Slice thin, season and place on a rack so the air can circulate around it.)

what an interesting concept, refrigeration drying. I guess it's probably not as absurd as it seems to me. Afterall freeze drying is pretty common.

haha, i think the baby is a few years old by now, time to start getting him ready for spicy food! Thanks for the recipe..

She is a little over 3 now, and baby girl #2 is 1 . I did have a huge spicy food craving with the first one, my poor hubby was getting sick of Ethiopian and Mexican food. Interestingly, she loves salty foods, such as olives, salami, and feta.

Thanks for the recipe, now that we belong to Costco because of the 2 kiddos, I will get some of their flank steak to try this out. I don't think I can justify another device such as a dehydrator in our small kitchen, so will try to use the oven.
LO

Good luck with the oven! I tried and tried to make oven jerky but never made a batch that I liked. Sigh. One of my several BigTime Failures.

If you get it to work for you, I bet there's a bunch of us who'd appreciate a report back, plus some pix.

Eagerly awaiting...

Geo

"I simply adore threads with three or four year gaps in them..."

Obviously I didn't pay enough attention to the date stamps; only noticed the last one when I posted.

He!l, the kids are almost old enough to have some nice red wine with their jerky.

Hi Mountain Seasonings makes several different flavors of jerky cures and they are available at Bass Pro Shops, and I would imagine Cabela's carries them too. Their instructions include for the smoker, dehydrator and oven drying on a rack with the door ajar which I have done successfully. I now have a dehydrator and that works well too.

I use lean round steak, rather than the more expensive flank steak. The secret to success is to stop the cooking/drying process before it gets hard. These jerkys need to be refrigerated, but I did tote a package around in the car for an entire weekend and didn't have a problem.

http://himtnjerky.com/product/jerky.php

The amount of products that cabela's had to make beef jerky was jaw dropping. I dont know anything about making your own, but I do know cabela's in Hammond, IN has EVERYTHING you would need to do it.

Da Beef wrote:The amount of products that cabela's had to make beef jerky was jaw dropping. I dont know anything about making your own, but I do know cabela's in Hammond, IN has EVERYTHING you would need to do it.

There is also a Cabela's in Hoffman Estates. Bass Pro Shops stock enormous amounts of jerky supplies, too.

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World
www.basspro.com
709 Janes Ave., Bolingbrook, (630) 296-2700
6112 W. Grand Ave., Gurnee, (847) 856-1229
6425 Daniel Burnham Drive, Portage, Ind., (219) 787-6800

Cabela's
www.cabelas.com
5225 Prairie Stone Parkway, Hoffman Estates, (847) 645-0400
7700 Cabela Drive, Hammond, Ind., (219) 845-9040

Jerky weaponry: