Thread: Made my first Jerky today!!!

Ok, I LOVE jerky. I used to buy Beef Jerky whenever I had access to it. (Which wasn't very often living in the EU let me tell you.)

And then the other day someone on a forum started talking about making your own jerky.

And I though:"That's an option?!!!!?????.....Offcourse that's an option why didn't I ever think of that before! I'll have to go and try that

So I did. I used chicken for the meat (cheap and the first time is a bit of an experiment so I didn't want to spend too much money on it.) and made a sauce out of Soy sauce, Pepper, Chilli Pepper, Olive oil, Salt, Garlic and Ginger root.

I sliced the chicken, let it sit in the sauce for an hour or 2 and hung the strips in my oven at 80 Celsius with the oven door open. I let it hang in there for a few hours (say around 6) and tasted the result this morning.

It's EXCELLENT! (A seems I went a little overboard on the garlic but hey...you live and learn).

I'll be doing this more often from now on.

Anyone make their own jerky? What do you use in the flavouring?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Anyone make their own jerky?

I'm a jerky lover "trapped" in the EU too Imported jerky is outrageously expensive!
Last time I went to the US I got me one of these : http://www.leeners.com/jerkyequipment.html

Jerky out of ground beef huh....hmm....makes a guy think.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Jerky out of ground beef huh....hmm....makes a guy think.

It's big "over there", and personally I love it! I use beef and venison (when I have available) as meat.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Jerky out of ground beef huh....hmm....makes a guy think.

It's big "over there", and personally I love it! I use beef and venison (when I have available) as meat.

My next batch might be made out of ground beef then. Any good recipes?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

My next batch might be made out of ground beef then. Any good recipes?

I usually use seasonings from the US, but one I did myself was

Garlic powder
Paprika powder
Black pepper powder
Worcestershire sauce

Salt and white vinegar (2 tblsp each per kg meat) as "cure"

Cure in fridge over night (it will turn greyish from the cure), make strips then dehydrate in oven as you did with your jerked chicken.

EDIT:
From a leaflet that came with one of my seasonings:

To make jerky strips without a Jerky Gun:
Lay the seasoned meat between 2 large sheets of wax paper. Roll meat with rolling pin into a large rectagular patty, approx 1/4" thick. Cut into 1" strips with wet table knife, remove from wax paper and place in oven (or smoker/dehydrator) on top rack at 200F for 1 hr, 20 min more if you like dryer jerky.

(I have a dehydrator and dehydrate over night)

If you're willing to do the legwork, you can find good game jerky recipes on various hunting forums. The forum I used to frequent was at www.huntingpa.com. They have a recipe section which I'm sure has jerky recipes in there.

I've had and made my own jerky from venison before. It's HIGHLY dependent upon the spices you use.

But above all else, promise me, PROMISE me, you'll never ever ever use chicken again. Steak, ground beef (shudder), venison, goose, duck....anything but chicken.

Originally Posted by kasperitis

anything but chicken.

Yeah, I didn't want to bring it up, but chicken is generally adviced against, and IF you use chicken, it's usually adviced to cook it before jerking... Can be loads of nasty stuff in chicken (salmonella and e. coli just to mention two).

My uncle makes amazing jerky out of beef. I just love it. I only get it around Christmas, though, unfortunately.

It's usually flavoured with hickory or apple, and they are salted to perfection. That is to say there's a lot of salt. Great flavours in the meat, too. Trying store-bought stuff after his jerky makes you realize how crappy the over the counter stuff is.